


Shifter

by A55hole69



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Badass!oc, Blood, Developing Friendships, Ex-military!oc, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Gore, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mutant!oc, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, OC has PTSD, Pre-Civil War (Marvel), Recreational Drug Use, Shapeshifter!oc, Thanos (Marvel) Dies, loki lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-05-09 01:38:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 45
Words: 47,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14706674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A55hole69/pseuds/A55hole69
Summary: Where Peter befriends a murder addict, who is more complicated than they look.





	1. Chapter 1

Teddy's been laying on a God damn rooftop for hours, looking through the scope of his sniper rifle waiting for his target to come out of the fucking club. What the fuck, could a fifty year old mob boss be doing in a night club for six hours.

The shifter had been watching this dude for a week now, and tonight is the only opening he had, the little pussy of a man had bodyguards on him all the time, so there wasn't an option for a close up and Teddy didn't really feel like doing a face to face this time so, here he is, lying on a rooftop, opposite the club,with a back ache.

From the information he got from his client, this guy, Robbie Thorne, is the head of a local New York mob. This guy's such a fucking dick. There was the usual drugs, trafficking, prostitution, etc. But this guy also had another dirty little secret, nasty fucker liked to touch on little boys. It was the only reason Teddy took this job in the first place, to get the cunt off the streets.

The night was freezing and windy and Teddy's leather jacket wasn't much help anymore. It was one in the morning and he was starting to feel tired, but he wasn't leaving, not 'til that fucker's dead.

An hour and a half later, Teddy saw movement from the backdoor of the club and it looks like Robbie came out for a smoke, and he's by himself. Idiot. Teddy turned the safety off, line up the shot and fired.

Headshot.

As he dropped, his bodyguards came running out looking around frantically for the shooter. Teddy watched as they scanned the perimeter for the shooter, smirking.

He got up and stretched out the kinks in his back before packing up the rifle in its guitar case, leaving no evidence and walked away.

..................................................

Walking through the streets of New York was always interesting especially at night, this was the time when all the weird shit happens. Like tonight, Teddy was just walking past an alley when he heard a gunshot, actually several, and Teddy, being curious, just had to check it out. Quickly crossing the road, the shifter got there just in time to see a figure fighting off a group of thugs. The figure looked like they had no idea what they were doing, which is why they were getting hit kicked out of them, but they were going strong.

After a while,from his hiding place behind a garbage can, Teddy saw the figure was starting to stumble and one particular thug got them straight in the jaw and they stumbled back and hit the wall. When Teddy saw the thugs were about to shoot the figure, Teddy sighed and quickly pulled his glock from its holster and shot four of them in the head and the other three in the chest.

When they were all down, the shifter put away his gun and slowly walked over to the figure, who now collapsed. He knelt down beside them and got a good look at them. They were wearing this really ugly red and blue onesie with a mask and goggles. Looked like somebody was trying to be hero. From the complete lack of breasts Teddy guessed it was a dude. His chest was rising and falling so he wasn't dead, but he had a nasty bullet wound in his leg and some cuts on his arm.

Teddy knelt there for a minute wondering if he should help they guy or not, but curiosity took over and he took off the guy's mask.

The shifter almost, almost, gasped when he saw it was just a boy who could not have been more than fifteen with a huge bruise on his cheek.

"Fuck it" Teddy breathed and picked him up. Looking around, the shifter made sure there was no evidence of him being here and started walking home with the boy in his arms.


	2. Chapter 2

It was like nine in the morning when Teddy decided to wake up and check on his house guest. The shifter patched up his leg and arm last night so he was on the couch in his under wear and a tank top. After looking him over and making sure he was fine, Teddy went to the kitchen and poured some frosted flakes into a cereal bowl with some milk, grabbed a spoon and went to the living room.

Switching on the TV, Teddy channel surfed for a bit eventually stopping on cartoons. Putting down the remote, he started eating his cereal. 

It was like this for about twenty minutes until Teddy heard a groan come from the couch. He looked over to see the boy stirring and got up, testing his cereal on the coffee table and knelt beside the couch.

 "Morning sunshine!"

The house guest jumped up from the couch, obviously startled, in a defensive position and Teddy couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous he looked.

 "Calm down kid. If I was gonna hurt you, I would've just let those dudes in the alley kill you." Teddy got up from his kneeling position and stood in front of the boy.

 "Who're you?"

 "Where are my manners? I am Theodore Jones, but you can call me Teddy, onesie boy. What is your name."

 He started to relax slightly until he looked down and saw what he was wearing, tensed right back up and replied "Peter. Where am I? How did I get here? Why am I in my underwear?"

 "You're at my place. I carried you here after I got rid of the thugs and patched you up. And finally your 'suit' is I the dryer because it was full of blood. You're welcome by the way."

He calmed down a bit after that but he was still standing in his defensive position. Teddy just watched him, this kid doesn't look like the fighting type so He was kinda confused as to why he was in the alley last night.

 "What were you trying to do last night anyway. You're so tiny did you really think you could take them all?"

 " No, I was, um, our for a walk and I saw they were trying to rob a lady so I tried to help. "

 "What's with the  mask then?"

 Teddy had never, in all his thirty two years of life, seen someone go so pale, in such a short time.

 "I, um, uhh, my, my face was um cold?"

 "You were walking around in a  mask at two in the morning cause your face was cold?" The kid just nodded frantically and Teddy giggled a little.  "That has to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Why don't you just tell me the truth in not gonna tell anyone. Pinky promise?"

 "No, I can't."

At least it was worth a shot, Teddy huffed "Fine," he was about to say something else but the dryer dinged. "That would be your onesie you can change into it and leave if you like."

 Suddenly his eyes for wide and he looked even more pale. "What time is it? "

 "9:57. Why?" Teddy went over to the dryer and take out the onesie and handed it to Peter. 

 "Oh God, Aunt May is gonna kill me. " He starts to frantically put it on while heading for the door. He opened it and paused before looking back. "Um thank you for helping me, um right, bye." And just  like that he slams the door and it's quiet again.

Teddy let out a sigh and went back to watching cartoons but just as he was about to sit down his phone beeped. "Another job, ughh, but I just got back from the past one."


	3. Chapter 3

"Don't you, step in my blue suede shoes,"

Teddy sang as she looked through the scope of her sniper rifle.

Tonight, her target was a stalker, Todd Ramsey. Her client hired her after she went to the cops about him and they did absolutely nothing because she needs evidence. This Todd guy had serious problems, she turned down his offer for a date and now he's following her and leaving dead animals in her doorstep scaring the poor lady. One particular night when she was walking home from work, he grabbed her from behind, raped her, beat her and left her for dead in the alley until someone found her and called an ambulance. Which is when she hired Teddy to take care of the problem.

So now, here she is, waiting on the building opposite Todd's ratty apartment building, staring through the scope of the rifle, listening to Elvis waiting for the creep to get home. She's been up here for almost five hours with her little radio waiting for this scumbag to come out. 

After around a half hour or so, she starts seeing movement in the apartment, it just looks like a head moving but she can't see his actual face yet. It looks like he's leaving though and Teddy stops singing and turns off the radio for a second. 

She sees a figure step outside but it's dark so she still can't see his face.

"C'mon, step into the light babydoll, there we go," Teddy whispered as Todd walks into the light, she sees its her target and smiles, " Gotcha, " and pulls the trigger.

She watches as he drops like a fly and the few people in the streets started screaming and running for cover.

"Now let's get out of here Teddy." She sighed to herself as she started disassembling the rifle and putting it in her 'guitar' case.

As she is doing this she feels a presence behind her and she acts quickly by pulling her hand gun out of the holster and turning to point it at the intruder only to have some white glue like substance cover the gun a pull it away.

"What the fuck?" She looks up to see the intruder and smiles. "Spider boy!"

"It's Spiderman, did you just kill that guy?"

"Please, from what I saw couple weeks back, you can't be any older than twelve Peter."

Peter started to panic because he can't remember this lady and she knows his true identity. "I don't know what you're talking about I've never seen you in my life."

"Right, I was not in this form when we met," she said as she started shifting into her male form, with short black curly hair and bright green eyes. "How bout now?"

"Holy shit! Teddy? What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here isn't it like past your bed time. And if you must know young man, I'm doing my job." She looked him over and said, "I see you've healed up nicely. How's the leg doing?"

"Don't change the sub, AHH SHIT... Did you just, throw a knife at me?!" He yelled holding his leg, the same leg that got shot in, as he fell over in pain. Teddy had waited till he was distracted and pulled the knife from its sheath on her leg and threw it at his leg.

"That was too easy, you really need to watch your surroundings dude, anyway it was nice seeing you again Peter, catch you later and sorry about the leg."

Teddy said as she started quickly grabbing her stuff and jumping off the roof.

"Wait, stop," Peter went over to look over the side of the building and she was gone.

 

When Teddy landed on the ground she quickly shifted into an old woman with white curly hair, pale sagging skin and a dull grey eyes, and remove the bottom of her guitar case to reveal a set of built in wheels and set it on the ground behind her and slowly walk dragging it behind her to avoid suspicion and continued singing.

"You're just the devil in disguise oh yes you are."


	4. Chapter 4

Still in her old lady form, Teddy was walking through the streets of New York enjoying the city at night. She always loved to see New York at night all the lights and busy people always fascinated her. 

Slowly walking, leaning on her cane, dragging her bag behind her, Teddy turned into an alleyway that was a shortcut to her loft. She was so deep in thought about that spiderboy that she did not hear the movement in front of her until she heard a voice.

"Give me the bag grandma, I don't wanna shoot an old lady." When she finally looked up she saw a man, a hairy man. He was about a foot taller than her but that was all she could make out in the dark. That and he was pointing a gun in her face.

Teddy wanted to laugh at this poor soul, he really did not know what he was getting himself into.

"Where are your manners young man? You would shoot an old lady?"

"If you don't give me the bag, yeah, I would." He said as he stepped forward slightly.

"What is wrong with this generation? Back in my day we used to help the old ones not shoot them. Have you no respect? I ought to teach you a lesson boy." 

"Lady just give me the b..." Teddy wacked him with her cane in his shin. 

"You young ones,"

wack,

"need to learn,"

wack wack 

"some respect,"

Teddy wacked him with the cane several more times and the man fell the dirty alley ground before she stopped. 

" Don't let me catch you doing this again, you hear me young man? " 

"Yes ma'am," He cried.

"Good cause there's more where that came from. " 

With that Teddy walked away and left him there, on the ground crying. When she finally turned to the alley opposite her loft, she looked and saw spiderboy looking at her with wide eyes before backing away and swinging off into the night. She sighed and walked on.

When she finally got home she changed back to her normal form, long brown hair and blue green eyes, she let out a laugh, "Yes ma'am, hehe, poor dude's gonna be terrified of old ladies now."

She went straight to the kitchen after putting away her gear and heated up some left over pizza, walked into her living room and turned on the TV to cartoons.

"You can come out spiderboy, don't be scared, I don't bite. "

Spiderboy seemed startled, "How did you know I was there?"

"You were not exactly quiet. What can I do for you Peter?"

"You killed that guy. "

"I don't know what you're talking about." She said , giggling at the characters on the show, they were doing a really silly dance.

"Then what were you doing in that roof tonight then, with a gun." Teddy turned to Peter almost forgetting he was there. She sighed, and paused the show before turning to talk to the boy.

"Look spiderboy I was just doing my job, the guy was dick anyway he deserved that. Pizza?"

" It's Spiderman, and who are you to decide who deserves what you are not a cop. "

"Look guy, I don't know what you want me to say the guy was terrorizing people for fun, and not the good kind of fun either, now the lady he was terrorizing can sleep happy knowing it's not gonna happen again. Yes I'm not a cop but I'm willing to do what the cops are to pussy to do. If you don't like that Peter then I don't know what to tell you." 

"But you didn't have to kill him, there had to be another way. "

"I already tried that way, twice, he just wouldn't listen now he's not gonna have to listen cause he can't do it again." Teddy looked over at Peter and she could see he was about to argue so she raised her hands to silence him. 

"Look kid, I see where you're coming from, I was like you once upon a time, so innocent to the real world but kid the world is a shitty place and sometimes shit happens and you have to do things that would keep you up at night but you gotta deal with it and move on. I know my job is bad but I do it so people feel safe and don't have to worry. The lady that called me about that guy, she's safe now she doesn't have to worry about pig heads on her doorstep anymore and I feel proud that I could do that for her. "

Peter stood there for a minute before sighing in defeat and taking something from behind his back and handing it to her. "I figured you'd want these back."

Teddy looked down and saw her gun and knife and took them in her hands.

" Oh, how's the leg? "

"It's fine. I'm gonna go now, Aunt May's gonna kill me." Peter turned to walk to the window.

"Bye Spiderboy."

" Whatever. "

With that he swung out of the window and out of view and Teddy shook her head and resumed the show and went back to her pizza.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next few weeks Peter had been a pain in Teddy's ass. He always made sure to get in the way and make sure she didn't kill anybody and it was getting on her nerves. 

The first time it happened was when she got a contract to kill some dirty cop, she was ready finger on the trigger ready to squeeze, then out of nowhere, a web wrapped her hand, the rifle shook and went off target and the bullet hit the wall right next to the target's head. That was when chaos ensued and the target for away. 

The second time it happened was a few weeks later on her next job, a Russian monster was in town for a couple days and he had a major security detail, so major she had to get close to do the job. She had shifted into one of the body guards after she killed him, he was this bald, buff dude with tattoos everywhere and cold blue eyes. Teddy had everything planned, kill him on the way to the hotel where he was staying shift into someone else and get out of there. Everything was going according to plan when they were walking to the car and she gets pulled into an alley and webbed to a fucking wall. Spiderboy nowhere to be found.

"FUCK!"

This happened about three more times and Teddy was furious, she tried catching the little bastard but he kept getting away,so she just have up.

Currently, it was midnight and Teddy was up on her favourite roof with her headphones on listen to music, sitting in a lounge chair looking at the stars, thinking. Thinking a lot how many ways she could hurt a twelve year old without killing them, since that spiderboy kept screwing up her business, she hasn't been paid in six weeks, luckily, she had some saved so She didn't have to worry for another six months. She wasn't going to ask her brother for help that's for sure, she would go back to stripping before asking him for anything. Pride is a bitch.

She was brought out of her thoughts when she saw a flash of red and took off her headphones. On the other side of the roof she could her sniffling like someone was crying and she decided to check it out. There, sitting on the edge crying with his head in his hands, was spiderboy. Teddy was about to leave, not wanting to be apart of whatever was happening, he looked up.

"Teddy? Umm, uhh, I was just leaving." He was about to get up and swing away when Teddy spoke up.

"Where's the fire dude? I ain't gonna hurt you. Yet." She said as she sat next to him and swung her legs over the ledge. " So, why is spiderboy crying? " 

"Its nothing." 

" Oh come on, you're here crying so it can't be nothing. What is it? Did your hamster die? Girlfriend leave? What is it? Spill. " 

He looked like he wasn't going to answer before whispering, "My uncle just died and it's all my fault." He said before breaking down into a sobbing mess.

"Oh God, he's crying, what do I do? " Teddy whispered, she didn't know how to comfort a person let alone a crying one, this is why she didn't have friends, but looking at this boy she couldn't stand to see him cry. Teddy huffed and calmed herself before awkwardly placing her hand on his back and running in circular motions before parting his back and whispering, "there there," 

It didn't calm him down at all, in fact he started crying louder. "Great fucking job Teddy, you made it worse." She didn't know what to do, Teddy was panicking again and did the first thing that popped into her head. She wrapped an arm around him and patted his hair, "You're gonna be fine. Please stop crying, I don't know what to do, this is the first time I've ever done this, my last friend never cried and I really have no idea what to do." 

He let out a wet laugh, "You're laughing it must be working," he pulled himself out of her embrace and wiped his tears with his gloved hands. " sorry about your uncle dude. "

"Thanks, Teddy."

" It's okay, " They say there on the ledge in silence before Teddy asked, "Does this mean you'll stop interfering with my job now?"

" Not a chance. "

"But murder." Teddy whined and kicked up her legs like a toddler.

"I said no, find something else to do. Goodnight Teddy."

Teddy huffed, defeated " Fine. Whatever. Good night. " Peter swung off the roof top and Teddy sighed. "Stupid teenagers."


	6. Chapter 6

The past few weeks for Teddy have been absolutely annoying, that spidertwat kept fucking up his hits and he was starting to get tired of it. He was starting to run out of cash and had to resort to underground boxing and wrestling matches. It was torture for Teddy, the fights were to easy and he couldn't kill any one, on top of that he had to shift from his female form because they didn't want to take women, sexist fucking pricks.

The place smelled so disgusting, like old sweat and homeless people but it paid good. Teddy couldn't really complain though it wasn't like he could get a real job since that would take paperwork and he was wanted for going awol. So this was it.

Teddy was walking home at three in the morning with a pocket full of cash, bloody knuckles and a smile on his face. Tonight he had three boxing matches, his opponents were all these really big dudes, all of which laughed at him because of how small he was and he enjoyed every minute of beating the shit out of all of them.

Teddy was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard gunshots a few blocks away from where he was. He sighed in frustration, this sort of thing happened so often that he was used to it now. 

He was about to walk away and continue home but something told him go and check it out. His curiosity winning, Teddy groaned and ran to where the gunshots were coming from. 

When Teddy got to the alley he couldn't help but feel like this was deja vu. There spiderboy was dodging bullets and punching criminals in the face except this time he was actually winning. Teddy decided to just watch this time so he leaned against the alley wall and crossed him arms on his chest. He was like this until he caught sight of one of the guys on the ground behind spiderboy reaching for a gun. Teddy quickly took a hunting knife from his boot and threw it at the dudes wrist. 

"Ahh!!" 

Heading the scream spiderboy quickly knocked out the last guy and spun around quickly and ready to attack and relaxed when he saw Teddy retrieving his knife from the man's wrist and grabbed his head and slammed it into the ground knocking him out.

"Spiderboy we have to stop meeting like this. Every time we see each other someone's getting beat up. Can't we just run into each other at the coffee shop or something . What happened here?"

"They were trying to mug this guy...who is gone now," he said looking around for the guy before sighing and looking at Teddy. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Coming back from work. Finished late." Teddy said and he wiped the blood off his knife into the man's jacket. 

" What?! "

"Not that job, because of you no one hired me anymore so I got another job and I still get to beat the shit out of people, so win-win I guess." He said shrugging nonchalantly, walking out of the alley.

"What do you do now? " Peter asks following him.

"Boxing, money's not great but it'll do." 

Teddy finally got to the street and turned to look at Peter.

"I'm going to escort you back to your apartment now. To make sure you don't get in anymore trouble. It's well past your bed time and I know you don't want your Aunt worrying about you."

" You don't even know where I live and I don't have a bedtime."

"Sure I do. You live in Queens, in that little apartment with your Aunt May. Your curfew is at ten and you're late by two hours."

"How do you know that?!" Peter asked slightly alarmed Teddy knew this.

" I looked you up after you fucked up my first job. I was totally gonna kill you but I don't kill anyone under eighteen. You're a high school freshman and your best friend's name is Ned. Now come along. " 

Peter sighed, he shouldn't really be surprised Teddy was a mercenary and Peter was convince the man was slightly crazy. He breathed in annoyance and followed Teddy out of the alley.

"How do you plan on walking me home if I'm in my costume?" 

"Right, put this on." Teddy took off his jacket and handed it to Peter. When he put it on they walked out of the alley and continued walking to Peter's place.

They were halfway when Teddy abruptly stopped and turned to Peter and asked, "You want a burrito?"

After the little stop, they continued on, talking till they got to Peter's place.

"Here's where I drop you off spiderboy. Stay out of trouble." Teddy said. Peter gave him a little wave and started climbing to his apartment. When Teddy was sure he was in, he started walking home, whistling.


	7. Chapter 7

In the past three and a half months , Teddy and Peter have had a very strange relationship. In the beginning, it was just them randomly bumping into each other on rooftops, then it escalated to Teddy helping him out when he got in trouble to them exchanging numbers so he could call in emergencies, sometimes when they meet up they end up talking or Peter would call at the most random times and tell Teddy about all the people he saved that day.

In those past three months Teddy also became increasingly worried about the Spiderboy, every time he called Teddy for help he always found the fourteen year old bleeding or full of bruises. Nothing to serious though, at least not yet, and he had hoped he would never find him seriously injured. 

The worst he ever found spiderboy with was a stab wound in the shoulder, but due to Peter's fast healing he recovered quickly after Teddy treated it.

After that day, Teddy made a promise to himself, saying if he ever found Peter seriously injured, he would dismiss his pride and call his brother for help. Teddy prayed this day would never come but the universe seems to hate him.

Arguably the second worst day of Teddy's life was the day he found Peter bleeding heavily from a gun shot wound in his stomach and unconscious on the roof of Teddy's apartment building, where they usually meet up, wearing that ridiculous onsie.

The boy had called Teddy about ten minutes ago, when Teddy was watching cartoons in his sweats, telling him he needed help. Teddy noted the heavy breathing and his pained voice telling him he really needed to hurry to the rooftop before he dropped everything and ran.

"Shit! Peter can you hear me?" Teddy checked his pulse and breathed in relief when he found it, it was faint but it was there. He started patting Peter's face to get him to wake up.

"Peter, get up." 

Peter groaned in pain and slowly opened his eyes, Teddy sighed in pure relief and looked over the wound groaning in frustration when he discovered the bullet did not go straight through, meaning he literally had to do some digging.

"Peter I'm going to need you to stay awake okay? I need to move you to my place, just please stay awake."

" Okay, I'll try. "

"Good boy." With that Teddy, as gently as possible, lifted Peter into his arms and quickly walked to his apartment. Since it was night time he didn't have to worry about his neighbors, most of them should be sleeping but Teddy still had to be cautious.

They made it back to Teddy's place after having a couple close calls and he gently lay Peter on his couch, cartoons still showing.

"You still with me Peter?"

" Yeah. " His eyes were barely opened and his breathing got heavier.

"Stay awake, I'll be right back. No sleeping." 

Teddy got up and ran to his bathroom to get his GSW kit and a tub of water with a cloth and ran back to his couch. Peter was struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Okay Peter stay with me. Tell what happened." Teddy said as he cut away the onsie and started to clean the blood so he could see the wound.

Peter breathed heavily before slurring out, "Tried to stop a robbery, got shot."

" I can see that. How many guys? " Teddy asked trying to distract him from what he had to do next. Peter groaned in pain when Teddy got the tweezers and dug into the wound to find the bullet.

"Sorry, how many guys?"

" Six, two got away but I webbed the rest for the cops. " 

Teddy finally found the bullet and pulled it out and started cleaning up to get ready to stitch him up.

"Was this before or after you got shot?" Cleaning the needle getting it ready, Teddy kept Peter talking to keep him awake. 

"After." 

After that it went silent with Teddy occasionally checking to see if he was still awake. When he was finished with the stitches,Teddy cleaned off the excess blood with the wet cloth and bandaged up his abdomen.

"How do you know how to do this?" Peter asked while Teddy clips the bandage on place.

"Was in the military for five years, picked up some stuff, plus when I was a mercenary I got shot a lot." Teddy answered, packing up the stuff and throwing away the bloody rags.

Teddy got up and went to the kitchen to get Peter a glass of water. 

"Drink this." He said his hand under Peter's head and tilted it so he could drink. After a few sips, Teddy pulled the cup away and gently set Peter's head down.

" Rest up spiderboy, you lost a lot of blood, you have to be tired. "

"But Aunt May?"

"No worries, I'll text her and tell her you're staying at Ned's or something. Now go to sleep, I'll be right here. " Peter fell asleep a couple minutes after Teddy texted his aunt.

Looking at Peter's sleeping form, making sure he didn't stop breathing Teddy remembered the promise he made to himself, this was serious now, Peter could have died had he not got to him in time. Teddy may have been calm on the outside but on the inside he was a mess. Worrying about Peter all the time, worried about him getting killed all the time it was getting to Teddy and he couldn't take it anymore, so on this night he came to a conclusion, one he did not like but it was absolutely necessary. So with this conclusion Teddy groaned in absolute annoyance placing his face in this hands.

"Fuck! I need to call Tony."


	8. Chapter 8

Getting a hold of his brother was easier than Teddy thought, he called, once and Tony agreed to meet him at the tower.

Teddy decided two things, Tony needed better security if he was able to get hold of him that easy and two he could breath easy and stop worrying so much about Peter. For now at least.

Teddy was sat in his living room cleaning his guns watching Adventure Time that afternoon when a thought occurred to him. He was wanted he, he was very fucking wanted. The reason he hadn't seen Tony in almost five years is cause he didn't want to get him into trouble. He was an Avenger now, a hero and he didn't need any of Teddy's shit right now.

Going to the tower would take some mega level shape shifting. He had to fool scanners and whatever high tech shit the CIA and basically every government agency has come up with, seeing that he can't really avoid any cameras when walking into the Avengers tower.

"Shit!" After this thought ran through his head Teddy decided to worry about it later and went back to cleaning his gun. 

After a couple hours of watching cartoons and cleaning weapons Teddy got a text from Peter at midnight saying he was on the roof. Putting away his guns and grabbing the gift he got Spiderboy, Teddy headed out to the roof. It was Peter's birthday today and Teddy got him something in hopes he would drop Teddy's murder ban.

When he got to the roof, Teddy immediately saw Peter in that ridiculous onsie with his mask off sitting on the ledge and walked over sitting on the ledge right next to him.

"Here you go." Teddy said , handing him the wrapped box.

"What's this?" Taking it cautiously, Peter looked at the box weirdly.

"Birthday present, open it."

" How did you know it was my birthday? " Peter asked, not recalling telling Teddy this information.

"Spiderboy, I know everything, now open the damn thing."

" Fine. " 

Peter slowly opened the gift and gasped.

"Holy shit, is this real!?" It was a lightsaber signed by Mark Hamil himself. Teddy spent two months trying to find the damn thing after he heard Peter going on about it. It was expensive but it was worth every penny seeing Peter's reaction. 

"Course it is, try it out." 

Peter pulled it out and pressed the button and the green light emerged from the base. Peter started laughing and swinging it around. It had the sound and everything and Peter absolutely loved it.

After several minutes of Peter swinging the saber, Teddy pulled out a second box.

"Oh. I got you something else. You were talking about it a couple weeks ago and not having enough money, Happy birthday Peter." 

Teddy handed him another box and the boy carefully put down the lightsaber and opened his other gift. 

Peter carefully took it out of the box, and revealed a camera, Peter was quiet for a couple seconds before he started to tear up and Teddy started to panic.

"Is something wrong? Is that not the one you wanted? Oh God why the hell are you crying? Did I do somet....." 

Peter cut off Teddy's rant by hugging him tightly, Teddy was stunned for a while before awkwardly hugging him back. It was the first time since Jones died someone had hugged him and he forgot what it felt like.

"Thank you." Peter said and let him go after a few minutes.

"It was nothing Petey, no need to thank me." Teddy, still slightly stunned from the hug pat Peter on his head lightly.

"Seriously Ted, thank you."

" You're welcome Pete. "

They say on the ledge talking about the most random things, and when Peter had to go home Teddy went back down to his apartment to start a plan on how to get into the damn Avengers compound and talk to his brother without being seen.


	9. Chapter 9

It was two days after Peter's birthday that Teddy found herself riding to the Stark Tower to talk to Tony and she had to admit she was feeling a bit overwhelmed. She wasn't too worried about getting caught since she was wearing someone else's face but she was nervous to see Tony cause she hasn't seen him in years. 

Last time they saw each other was a month before she became a wanted criminal and she didn't want him to get more heat than he was already getting so she stopped visiting me stopped calling. It's been about four years and she was very nervous but she had to suck it up because Peter was too important.

Teddy pulled up in an alley four blocks away from the tower and shifted into a tourist and walked over to the Tower taking a camera out of her backpack. 

Hours before this Teddy was doing a little recon to make sure she didn't fuck up and crafted the perfect idea to shift into someone no one would question.

Teddy reached the Tower and was starting to get cold feet, she was about to turn back but remembered why she came in the first place. She took a deep breath and looked around to make sure no one was looking and shifted into the Captain and walked through the door.

"Friday where is Tony?" 'Steve' asked when he got to the elevator.

"Boss is in his lab." 

" Take me to the lab, please. "

The elevator doors shut and it started moving, a few seconds later the doors slid open and 'Steve' walked out into the noisy lab. Teddy smiled when he heard the familiar tunes and shifted to his original form and started looking for Tony.

"Tony?"

Teddy scanned the enormous area, searching for his brother. He found Tony tinkering with one of the cars and sighed.

"Friday cut the music, please." The music stopped and Tony looked up from the car.

"What the hell?"

" Hi," Teddy awkwardly said and scratched the back of his neck.

"Theodore, what a lovely surprise. When I got your call I thought someone was pranking me." Tony said sarcastically before going back to the car. "What do you want?"

" Wow, straight to the point. No, hi teddy? No, how are you Teddy? " 

"No, now what do you want?"

" Ok, fine. I need your help with a friend of mine. " Hearing that Tony suddenly turned around and dropped the wrench like it was lava.

"I'm sorry, what? You need my help with your friend?" 

" Yes? " Teddy asked confused to his reaction.

"You have a friend? And you need my help? This never happens." Tony whispered to himself.

" I have asked you for help before. "

"When you were five, you haven't asked for my help in about twenty years." 

Teddy frowned, " Really? Hmmm. Anyway I have something to show you. " 

He took his backpack off and rest it on a table and pulled out his laptop. He opened YouTube and pulled up a Spiderman video. He was in that ridiculous onsie stopping a car accident.

"This is my friend."

"You're friends with Spiderman?" He asked slowly.

Teddy rolled his eyes and pulled up the information he had on Peter.

"Yes. His real name is Peter Parker and he just turned fifteen." 

" What? You're friends with a fifteen old, couldn't find anyone your own age or something? " 

Teddy glared at him and rolled his eyes. "Anyway, he keeps almost dying and it's annoying. First time we met I stopped someone from shooting the kid and a couple weeks ago he did get shot and almost died. I'm worried about him but I can't exactly help him since he doesn't really like my version of helping so I came to you."

" He doesn't like that you're a mercenary? "

Teddy snorted in surprise, "How did you know about that? "

"I've been keeping tabs on you for years to make sure you weren't dead. Though your stupid shapeshifty thing made it slightly difficult, luckily I am a genius."

" Oh, " Teddy shook it off not knowing what else to say. "He really doesn't like that, he kept fucking my jobs up until I had to find something else to do. He's insanely smart, he built his own web shooters. He's also a huge nerd, keeps getting bullied and wouldn't let me fucking kill the dickhead." 

Tony lied t him for a few moments and leaned back on the table and crossed his arms. "I used to think you were a sociopath. You were always stoned faced, not being able to interact with other people in a positive way. When mom and dad died you just shrugged it off like it was nothing. You joined the army and came back normal even killed your commanding officer and team without blinking. Now I'm rethinking that, seeing how worried you are for this kid makes me question everything I know about you."

Teddy bowed his head and sighed, "My commanding officer and team were a bunch of bitches who don't like the fact that I was a mutant and tried to kill me. Bullet to the head was more than they deserved."

" See? " Tony pointed out. "See that is exactly what I'm talking about. What's so special about this kid that he has you so worried?"

" The little twat reminds me of Jones. Nerdy and annoyingly heroic. You know before they killed him. Please help me. "

Tony looked at his little brother seeing the look of pure desperation on his face and sighed. "Damn. Fine I'll see how I can help your little friend out. On one condition." 

Teddy groaned and slowly asked,"What is it?"

"You have to help me." Teddy looked surprised at the suggestion since they hadn't worked together on a project since he was sixteen.

"Seriously, that's it?" 

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yes, I could use your input since you know the kid better." 

" Ok, right. So when are we going to get started? "


	10. Chapter 10

Teddy was wondering around the Avengers compound bored out of her mind, Tony had kicked her out of the lab so he could concentrate on Peter's suit since she kept singing and asking him ridiculous questions. 

The past few weeks working on the suit with Tony had been eventful, to say the least, she loved working with her brother again and she got to meet a few of the Avengers, they think she's Tony's lab assistant, and in Teddy's opinion they aren't all that impressive once you've met them. Except Black Widow, that lady was terrifying. The first time she met Vision she was in the lab with Tony and he had phased through the fucking wall and almost have her a heart attack, she's used to it now.

Teddy stopped at the kitchen and pondered whether or not she was hungry and decided she was and went in. It was empty as suspected since it was early morning. Teddy searched the fridge and when she found nothing she moved to the cabinets where she found a jar of cookies and a bag of potatoes chips.

Teddy grabbed the jar and the bag and went up to the roof where she sat on the ledge and ate.

She placed the now empty jar on the ledge beside her and pulled out her phone to play candy crush to pass the time. After a while she grew bored of that and plugged in her ear buds to listen to music swinging her legs back and forth humming along.

For over an hour she just say there watching the sun rise listening to Beethoven waiting for Tony to tell her when she can come back. 

Teddy's phone finally went off notifying her she had a text and she quickly opened it. 

'You can come back now.'

"Thank god." She got up and stuffed her phone in her pocket and father the cookie jar in her arms and left the roof.

After putting back the cookie jar, Teddy jogged to the lab bumping into Steve on the way down.

"Morning Mr. America," Steve sighed tired of telling her to call him by his name.

"Morning Teddy."

She smiled and continued jogging to the lab.

Walking through the lab door, she saw Tony drinking what looks like his fourth cup of coffee.

"Why don't you just do crack of you wanna stay awake so bad?"

Tony snorted. " No thank you. You know Nat is gonna kill you for eating her cookies right? "

"Do you really think I'm stupid? I've been doing stealth missions for years, so you really think I would use my face when stealing cookies from the most dangerous woman in the world?" 

Tony eyed her cautiously and asked, "Who's face did you use?"

"Yours obviously. Don't worry I'll protect you."

"Oh God." Tony said rubbing his face in annoyance.

" So where are we with the suit? Did you put in instant kill mode like I asked? What about lasers? "

"I finished programming Karen it just needs to be tested now. No it doesn't have any lasers. Yes it has instant kill mode but that is locked."

"Why is it locked?"

" It's on training wheels protocol. He'll have access to it when I take it off. "

"Let's test it then. Can I test it?" 

"Not now. I'm gonna get something to eat and more coffee. We can test it at lunch."

" I'm coming with you. To protect you just in case Nat finds out about the cookie incident and I'm also hungry again. "

Tony sighed and left with Teddy following.

Lunch time came and Teddy found her self wearing the suit she designed for Peter standing in the center of the Avengers training room, Tony was off to the side observing to make sure nothing went wrong.

"Okay, it can adapt to any size, Karen is working perfectly and it is so comfy. If this wasn't for Peter I would steal this thing."

"You can make one for yourself when we're finished with this one. Let's test the webbing now. " 

Teddy went to shoot Tony in the face with the web but instead it stuck to the wall next to his face and she pouted. "The aim is slightly off."

Tony snorted lightly. "Or your aim just sucks." 

Teddy gasped in horror, "I am a sniper, first in my class, never missed a target in my life. My aim is spectacular, superb. I am the best, even better than that hawk guy. How dare you Anthony?"

Tony rolled his eyes at his little sister.

" And people call me dramatic. Try again. Not at my face this time. "

Teddy whined and mumbled something under her breath and aimed at the targets in the other side of the room a few times and missed each time.

"It's definitely not me as I told you. I should make you buy me cake for insulting me like that, you hurt my feelings."

"Don't you think you should lay off the cake for a little while."

"Absolutely not I will never lay of the cake, cake is precious, cake is......wait a minute, did you just call me fat? "

"Yes I did."

" Meanie. " Teddy folded her arms across her chest and pouted. 

"Whatever let's just finish this so you can get out of my hair."

"I thought you loved me. "

Tony groaned and Teddy sighed, "Fine, let's finish this."

They spent two more hours testing the suit a writing down the things in need of tweaking and finally called it a night. Teddy packed up her stuff in her backpack and put it on. She had to go back to her apartment in the city to check on Peter and get some sleep since they had been working on finishing the suit for about fifty hours. 

"See you tomorrow Anthony."

"Yeah see you." Teddy walked out of the lab to the exit where she spotted Steve and Sam chatting away about something that looked serious so Teddy slipped past the discreetly and walked out the door. When she got to her motorcycle, she put on her helmet and swung her leg over it, started it and sped off.


	11. Chapter 11

Teddy opened the door to his apartment and entered, whistling a tune, when he felt something off. He shut the door and switched on the light. Nothing seemed out of place but Teddy knew better, some idiot broke into his apartment. They probably wanted him for some reason or the other. He could smell the cheap body spray strongly which meant they were still there, indicating they were waiting for him. The shifter did not want blood in his place, meaning they had to relocate and Teddy came up with a plan. He sighed pretending to relax a bit before feeling pain in his head before everything went black.

Groaning at the the massive headache he had mysteriously acquired, Teddy's eyes fluttered open to a dark space. It was too dark to tell where he was or what the place looked like but it was cold, damp and did not smell right. 

He felt something sticky running down his forehead and went to touch it only to find his arms were tied behind his back and he was sitting in a chair. Bright side, the idiot that took him didn't tie his legs. Teddy sighed in annoyance.

" Fucking idiots, can't even kidnap a person properly." He muttered under his breath. 

Teddy looked around trying to see if he could find anything but it was to dark. He sighed and sat there waiting to see if someone would come but no one did and after what felt like hours Teddy finally lost it and started singing. Loudly.

For what felt like an hour, based on his calculations, Teddy sang songs that ranged from gospel to rap to pop, everything, at the top of his lungs. It was when he started singing the anthem that someone barged in and turned on the lights. He stopped singing and started blinking rapidly to get his eyes to adjust to the light.

"Shut the fuck up for God's sake man." His mystery person called out. Teddy looked at his kidnapper. He was relatively tall, looked like twelve, short blonde curly hair and brown eyes. 

"Fucking finally. Do I know you? What the fuck do you want?"

"You killed my brother." Curly snarled.

" I killed a lot of people son, you're gonna have to be more specific. "

"Todd, you stabbed him in the neck." Curly snapped. Teddy rolled his eyes at Curly's dramatics and asked.

"Was it 'child molester' Todd or 'killer' Todd cause I stabbed both of them in the neck?"

"It was a almost four years ago, you killed him and his team in the desert and left them their. " 

Teddy tried to remember that when it clicked.

"Ahh, 'killer' Todd, I enjoyed that one, he was a dick. Bastard tried to kill me. So let me guess you want to kill me cause I killed your brother is that it? " 

Curly pulled a knife from behind him and stepped forward pointing it at Teddy's face.

"No, I'm not gonna kill you, but you're gonna wish I had, I'm gonna.." Teddy cut him off.

"Curly, can you be more original? Honestly? Torture is the best you can come up with? Isn't it past your bed time? Don't you have school tommorrow? How old are you anyway?" 

Curly scoffed. "I'm a senior in college not twelve and yes I'm gonna torture you and then, I'm gonna kill you." 

Teddy breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn't a kid because now, he could kill him, he knew too much.

"Thank god." Curly looked at him, puzzled.

"Why are you thanking God right now? You're tied to a chair."

" Am I? " Teddy raised his hands to show off he wasn't tied any more and got up from the chair. " I've been untied even before you stepped into the room, let me just say, you tied the shittiest knot ever. It wasn't even hard getting out. " Curly raised the knife in defence and slashed at Teddy.

Teddy blocked it, Curly slashed again this time cutting him on the arm. Teddy grabbed his arm and broke it, successfully getting Curly to drop the knife. 

Curly howled in pain and dropped to the floor crying, with his hand in his lap and his head bowed.

Teddy bent over to retrieve the knife, went over to where Curly was trying to crawl away and yanked him up by the hair. 

He sighed, "Sorry Spiderboy." 

Teddy took the knife and slowly dragged it across Curly's throat. Blood splattered across Teddy's face and he dropped Curly and the knife. He looked down at the body and he could see the resemblance between him and Todd now with the blood covering his face. The shifter sighed and searched Curly's pockets for car keys and found keys to a Mustang.

"Sweet." He stood up and walked out of the what looked like an old run down building .

When Teddy stepped outside, it was almost dawn. He found Curly's car and drove home.


	12. Chapter 12

Deciding that he did not want blood anywhere in his apartment, Teddy drove to the Avengers compound. Since it was still early as shit, no one should be awake and he would have plenty of time to wash the blood off of him and get a new change of clothing. He also had to stitch up the bleeding gash on his right arm. But first, he had to get rid of this car.

Pulling into an empty parking lot, Teddy shifted his form into a short fat man with a bald spot and a greying beard, and got out of the car.

He walked a couple of blocks down the street where he saw an old Chevy. Teddy took off his jacket and wrapped it around his hand, smashed the car window and unlocked the door to get in. He hot wired the car and drove off.

Stopping half of a mile away from the compound, Teddy ditched the car, shifted back to his form and started walking. Fifteen minutes later he arrived at the compound and FRIDAY let him in. The shifter scoped the place to make sure no one was around before making his way to his room - Tony set it up just in case he was too tired to go home - and stripped off his bloody clothes. 

Teddy stepped into the shower and scrubbed the blood off his skin, from under his finger nails and let water clean the dried blood from around his wound. When he was finished showering, Teddy dried his skin and wrapped his towel around waist and walked out into his room where he put on the black sweatpants that he left up here and there a grey t-shirt over his left shoulder and left his room on route to medical to stitch up his arm and his head. 

After patching himself up in medical, the shifter put on his shirt and went to the kitchen to get tea and steal more cookies before going down to Tony's workshop.

It looked like Tony actually slept last night because the workshop was dark and empty. Teddy looked at the time, it was around six so he went over to the T.V. and turned on cartoons. He stretched out in the couch watching and eating. 

One hour later, Teddy had finished his breakfast and was starting to get bored waiting on Tony. Twenty minutes had gone by and he got fed up and went up to Tony's bedroom. 

The bastard was still sleeping, he looked so peaceful but Teddy was bored so he couldn't have that. Teddy shifted into a black cat and jumped into Tony's bed and crawled up to his brothers head and curled up flicking his tail in Tony's face. Tony swiped at his face grumbling before going back to sleep. Teddy rubbed his tail under Tony's nose. Tony's nose twitched a couple of times before he jolted up sneezing. 

Teddy started laughing maniacally. Tony looked around at the sound and saw the laughing cat and groaned.

"Really Theodore? What the hell is wrong with you?" 

Teddy changed back to his original form wiping the tears from his face.

"Oh man, that is a classic. I missed doing that so much." Teddy stretched out in the bed in his back and placed his arms behind his head. "Sorry bout that Tony I got bored down in your workshop waiting for you to wake the fuck up." 

Tony grumbled firefly and dropped back in bed. He looked over at his brother noticing his arm bandaged and head stitches. "What happened to you?"

Teddy looked at his arm and shrugged, "I got kidnapped yesterday afternoon, the guy sliced me, I sliced him back. In the neck." 

Tony snorted. " You got kidnapped? You're losing your touch baby bro. "

"Please, I knew he was there, I just didn't want blood in my apartment and I was curious as to why he wanted me." 

" Wow, I knew you would say something like that. What did he want exactly? " Tony got up and got dressed while Teddy laid there staring up at the ceiling.

"His brother was my commanding officer that I stabbed in the neck after he tried to kill me." Tony paused and looked at Teddy incredulously . Teddy huffed, "Don't give me those judgemental eyes, he was a dick."

Teddy sighed and sat up. "Anyway enough about that lets go get breakfast and finish testing the suit, I fixed the targeting system last night so it should be fine."

"Alright, give me a sec."Teddy shifted into the blonde intern he usually is around the Avengers and walked out the door with Tony.

"That is still the coolest thing I've ever seen." Tony noted in awe. Teddy flipped her hair over her shoulder cockily.

"I know." They walked past Steve on their way to the kitchen. " Morning Mr. America. "

Tony snorted when Steve groaned in defeat. "Morning Teddy."


	13. Chapter 13

Teddy sat, in her cat form, curled up in the sofa in Tony's workshop, watching the news. The Avengers were on again but it did not look good this time. Apparently, some of the team, minus Tony, had a mission in Lagos and fucked it up killing a bunch of people. 

Teddy was patiently waiting on Tony to get home from his stupid thing at MIT and pay her attention. They were finished with Peter's suit, but Teddy missed hanging out with Tony so she still visited him every day since she did not have a day job. The shifter groaned and changed into the blonde intern and went to the kitchen to get frosted flakes. When she came back, she returned to her cat form and ate, flicking her tail back and forth.

When Teddy heard the workshop door open, she got up, switched back to the intern and put the bowl of cereal on the coffee table.

"Took you long enough, I have been waiting here for thirty six minutes Tony." 

Tony stepped in the workshop groaning and rubbing his face. She could tell he was tired as hell but the idiot refused to rest himself. Tony dropped down on the sofa next to his sister and put his head in her lap. Teddy gently massaged his scalp and Tony relaxed.

They sat in silence for a couple of seconds before Teddy sighed and picked up her bowl of cereal from the table, put them in the seat beside her and continued eating. "You guys are so screwed." 

"Don't I know it. Lagos was so bad they're sending in Secretary Ross." 

The shifter groaned at that name. "Awe man you guys really are fucked, that guy is a total dick. What does he want?" 

The billionaire rubbed his head for what looked like the thousandth time. "I have no idea but whatever it is we'll deal." 

Teddy could tell that wasn't his only problem, Tony looked wrecked as hell.

"What else is wrong with you? Is it Pepper? Since you two broke you've looked like absolute shit, and I mean that in the nicest way possible."

The billionaire snorted, "That's putting it nicely?" 

" Yes. "

"It's not Pepper this time, I ran into a woman at MIT, apparently her son was in Sokovia when the whole Ultron thing went down and he got crushed by a building."

Teddy's fingers stilled in Tony's hair for a moment before continuing. "Wasn't like it was you're fault. I mean, you did build Ultron but you didn't know he would turn into a murder bot." She joked a little hoping it would ease the tension.

"Not helping Theodore."

" Do you want me to kill her, cause I would totally do it, she'd be reunited with her son, everybody wins. "

"No. No, I don't want you to kill her. What is wrong with you?"

" Sorry, I was just asking. " Teddy grabbed the remote and changed the channel to cartoons.

"You watch way too many cartoons for a thirty three year old." Tony pointed out.

" Fuck off Anthony. "

Tony was about to retort when FRIDAY interrupted. "Secretary Ross just arrived boss."

Tony closed his eyes and got up. "I be right back sis."

" Okay. "

.................................................

 

When Tony came back into the workshop, he found Teddy curled up in her cat form sleeping with the cartoons still showing.

He felt even more tired than he did when he left here a few hours ago, like he could drop at any moment. Everything was making him tired, from the whole Pepper break up to the accords situation Tony just wanted to sleep, and that is exactly what he did.

Tony walked over to the sofa and scooped up his sister, lay down and put her on his chest stroking her black fur, turning off the cartoons. He stared at the ceiling until he eventually fell asleep.


	14. Chapter 14

"I still don't understand why you brought me to Germany with you." Teddy asked.

The siblings were currently driving to the hotel, Teddy had his feet kicked up on the dash while Tony drove. Tony was here to sign this accords thing and for some reason he brought Teddy with him, no explanation what so ever, he just told the shifter to pack some stuff and basically dragged him on the jet.

"You, my dear little brother, are here as moral support. A reminder that if I can put up with you for thirty three years that I could get through anything." 

Teddy gasped in offence, "You're joking aren't you."

"Not about the first part, I do need you for moral support. You don't have to go to the signing with me, you can explore Germany or stay in the hotel if you want. Whatever is fine with me, just don't go killing anyone even if they look at you funny. We do not need a repeat of England." 

Tony pulled up to the hotel and got out giving the valet his his keys while Teddy got the bags from the trunk.

"That chick was looking at me funny Tony, if I didn't kill her she would've skinned me alive, she had that serial killer stare." Teddy said as he passed Tony his bag and they enter the hotel.

The shifter waited by the elevator while Tony got the keys.

"What about France?" Tony asked and handed Teddy his room key getting into the elevator.

"Okay fine I get, I have a problem, but not to worry, I have turned a new leaf. I am a pacifist now, no more violence, no more killing people. In fact I haven't killed a single person in five weeks. You should be proud. "

"Wow." 

" I know it's been too long. I miss the scent of blood." Teddy stopped at his door and turned to Tony. "I'm not going to your signing thing either, it's not that I don't wanna be your moral support, in fact I'm honored, it's just these kind of things are usually so boring. I'm gonna stay here and order some ice cream and watch the news or something." 

They got out of the elevator and walked down the hallway to their rooms.

Tony nodded his head and unlocked the door, went inside and shut the door.

Teddy entered his room and immediately kicked off his combat boots, he threw his bag on the sofa and jumped up in the bed, turning on the TV.

..........................................................

Teddy was roaming through the city, he got bored at the hotel and decided to go sight seeing, since the last time he was in Germany was almost ten years ago and some things have changed.

He stopped at a bar and ordered a burger with fries and water. He sat there for a good twenty minutes eating and watching TV, before the show cut to breaking news showing the explosion that had just occurred at the accords thing. Teddy choked on his water a little when the anchor woman said the winter soldier was the one who set off the explosion killing the king of Wakanda and few other people.

The shifter finished his meal and paid before exiting the bar and heading back to the hotel to check on Tony. He was a block away when his cell phone rang. Teddy dug it out of his pocket and answered.

"It wasn't me, I was at a bar eating, I don't even know anything about bombs. Just how to build them and that they explode." 

Tony chuckled and rubbed his face on the other end of the line, " I know you didn't do Ted, I was just calling to see if you were in your room. "

Teddy breathed, "Not yet but I'm on my way now. Are you coming back yet?"

" I wish they're taking us to their headquarters and you aren't exactly welcome in the CIA, you know, after you killed some of their agents, so stay there and when we're ready I'll come a get you, okay? " 

Teddy groaned as he entered the hotel walking straight to the elevator.

"Fine. But in my defense, they were gonna kill me first." He got off the elevator and unlocked his door and stepped inside.

"Whatever, I have to go now, don't do anything stupid Theodore." With that Tony hung up and Teddy threw his phone on the bed kicking off his shoes and sat on the bed. 

"Fuck."

Teddy picked up his phone again and sent a quick text.

'Get out of there now, doll.'


	15. Chapter 15

Teddy was pissed. 

The shifter didn't think he could get this mad but Tony proved him wrong. Tony had called back when Teddy was watching cartoons saying Cap had escaped with his war buddy after they had just caught him and he needed Teddy to help find them. 

It had taken the better part of five hours but Teddy found them and exited the hotel, stealing a red Ferrari, making his way to the airport, after calling Tony and telling him he found them. When Teddy got to the spot where Tony told him to meet up Teddy was confused when he saw Spiderman among everyone, suited up, except for his brother.

The shifter walked up and greeted them before turning to Peter frowning. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?" 

Peter looked at Teddy, surprised to see him there, "Mr. Stark said something about stopping unstable super soldiers. What are you doing here?" 

Teddy was fuming.

"Killing Tony. Where the fuck is he?" Teddy was seething. He looked around for Tony spotting him on the phone a couple metres away. The shifter pushed past Peter and marched up toward his brother.

Tony was on the phone when he spotted his very angry little brother making his way towards him, he gulped and hung up putting his hands up surrendering.

"I'm gonna kill you and then I'm gonna bring you back to life and then burn you alive." 

Tony backed up quickly, "Wait, wait, I was gonna tell you but then I decided that it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission."

Teddy clenched his fists, "You are never going to get my forgiveness. He's fifteen for Christ sake, what were you thinking?"

"What does his age have to do with anything? You and Jones had done much worse when you were twelve." 

" Breaking into the Pentagon to find Area 51 is not the same as fighting two unstable super soldiers Tony. " Teddy was ready to kill him just one twist of his neck, that was it.

Tony choked on his spit hearing this, "You did what?! Holy shit, did you find it? How the hell did the two of you pull that off?"

"Yes we found it but there were no aliens." Teddy relaxed slightly before realizing what his brother was doing. "Don't change the subject, what is Peter doing here?"

"He's helping, he was really excited when I asked. Don't worry he's got the suit he's gonna be just fine." Teddy looked back at Peter seeing him already looking at them waving.

Teddy huffed and dragged his hands down his face, "Fine. But if anything happens to him, I'm gonna cut you dick off and feed it to you." Tony looked slightly alarmed and was about to say something when Teddy's phone went off. The shifter pulled his phone from his pocket and checked it. "Cap's here and he's got company."

"Alright I want you to evacuate the airport, get everybody out even the employees." Tony clapped him on the shoulder and walked off to join everyone. Teddy sighed and ran off to announcements.

 

After evacuating the airport, Teddy went to the observation deck to keep an eye on Peter.

....................

The whole thing was a mess, buildings collapsing, explosions, Rhodey getting hit, Cap getting away. But Peter was fine so Teddy didn't really give a shit about everything else. The real highlight of the whole thing though was when that ant dude turned into a giant. When the fight was over and the CIA swarmed the place to arrest team Cap, Teddy slipped out back to the stolen Ferrari and drive back to the hotel.

Teddy's phone rang when he started the car and he pulled it out of his pocket answering, "Yes Anthony?"

" You're not still mad are you? " 

"What do you want Anthony? I'm going back to the hotel." 

" Right that's why I was calling, I just wanted to make sure you got out and tell you Peter's totally fine. "

"Whatever." The shifter hung up and threw his phone in the passengers seat turning on the radio.


	16. Chapter 16

Teddy had been hanging out with Peter in the hotel when his phone alerted him. It was about a day after the whole airport situation and they were waiting on Tony to return from where ever the hell he ran off to.

The shifter took his phone from his back pocket and read the alert. 

A few months back when Teddy was working with Tony, building Peter's suit, the shifter was messing around with FRIDAY, after he got kicked out of Tony's workshop, Teddy tweaked the AI a bit so when Tony activated the Iron man suit it would alert him of its location. Basically, Teddy put a tracker in Tony's suit.

What confused the shifter was the suit was not returning instead of looked to be heading to Siberia, of all places.

"Where the fuck are you going?" He whispered to himself. "Look Peter can we hang out later, I have to call Tony."

"Sure." The shifter watched as Peter got up and went back to his room. Teddy looked at the red dot again before dialing Tony's phone. 

"What's up baby bro? I can't talk right now, I'm helping Cap hunt down psycho assassins." Tony answer a few seconds later.

" You're doing what? Is this about the thing thing that was on the news, that Cap's army buddy is innocent?"

"Yes, that one, now I'm helping them with assassins so I'm gonna have to call you back okay, bye." 

" Wait, " But before Teddy could say anything Tony hung up.

The shifter had a really bad feeling about this whole situation and started pacing back and forth, trying to convince himself Tony would be fine what did not help was that fifteen minutes after the phone call Tony's suit went off line and the red dot disappeared.

Teddy panicked and ran out of his room towards Tony's room. He shuffled through Tony's shit looking for back up FRIDAY. 

"Where are you?" He was full on panicking , scrambling through the cloths for the earpiece when he finally found it.

"FRIDAY baby? You there?" Teddy asked pushing it in his ear.

"Yes Mr. Stark." she answered and Teddy breathed in relief.

"What happened to Tony? I'm not picking up a signal." 

"Boss's suit appears to be damaged after fighting with the Captain and Mr. Barnes." 

" What?! Is he okay? " 

"I cannot tell. I was disconnected after the Captain took out the reactor."

" Shit, " 

Teddy took off down the hall to the elevator.

...............................................................

Stealing a jet was far to easy, the airport needed better security.

Teddy was flying the stolen jet towards Siberia, he should be there shortly. He was gonna kill Tony for worrying him like this, the shifter was actually shaking.

Minutes later, Teddy landed the jet and got out of the pilot seat checking the jet for blankets or a first aid kit, he found both and opened the hatch, which he immediately regretted seeing that is was freezing outside and was wearing a thin long sleeve shirt, a brown leather jacket, cargo pants and combat boots.

Teddy cursed himself, it seemed in the heat of panicking over Tony he forgot about keeping himself warm. He sighed and dropped the kit and blankets shifting into a polar bear, grabbing the things in his mouth and walking towards what looked like a bunker.

Looking around Teddy realised there was no one else around, meaning that Cap and his friend already left. Entering the bunker he realized it was slightly warm in here so he shifted back to his form and continued searching for Tony. He tapped the ear piece.

"FRIDAY can you do a sweep of the bunker and tell me where Tony is?" Teddy asked the AI.

"Already did. Boss is on the lower levels of the bunker and appears to be injured." 

" Thanks baby girl. "

Teddy made his way to the lower levels as instructed. Looking around the bunker, he started to feel creeped out and stupid for not bringing a weapon, praying to the gods that no one is down here to attack him.

When he finally found Tony he ran to him.

"Tony!" He slowed down walking to his brother. "Tony?" He wasn't responding, Tony looked to be in a state of shock staring at something on the ground. Teddy looked at what he was staring at choking on his spit when he saw Cap's shield and a metal arm laying on the ground. Teddy looked back at Tony, grabbing his face and shaking it gently. "Tony?" He still didn't respond not taking his eyes off the shield.

Teddy sighed in utter annoyance and punched Tony in the face.

"Ah, what the hell? Teddy? When did you get here? How did you get here?" 

"I stole a jet when your tracker died. What the fuck happened here? You scared the shit outta me. "

"What tracker? How the hell did you steal a jet?" Teddy groaned and opened the first aid kit to clean up Tony's face.

"I put a tracker in your suit. You don't need to know. Now what the fuck happened, why would Cap and his friend destroy your suit and leave you?" 

" Cap's friend killed our parents. " Teddy threw away the cotton swab and closed the kit since he was done and looked back at Tony.

"So you tried to kill him?"

" Yes, why are you not surprised? "

Teddy sigh in exasperation, and wiped his hand down his face.

"I've known for years, it was in the data dumps when SHIELD fell." Tony looked angry and betrayed.

"How could you not tell me about this? You've known about this for years and didn't tell me?" Teddy got up from kneeling in front of Tony, standing with his arms crossed.

"I didn't tell you because he was recovering from being mind fucked, I saw what they did to him. Electro shock therapy, trigger words, those bastards mind fucked the poor dude, tortured him for seventy years and froze him when he was not needed. He didn't even know what he was doing. It was so bad, he get nightmares a lot and he barely even sleeps. It's sad really."

"How do you know he has nightmares?"

Teddy sighed, "Who do think helped him get out of America? I stayed with him for a couple of months so he could settle in. I had to leave cause there was too much heat on me and I didn't want him to get caught." Teddy huffed and shivered a little, " Let's get back to the jet it's freezing in here." 

The shifter helped his brother off the ground and placed arm around him to help him walk.

" I know I should probably be angry at you right now but I'm not surprised that you became best friends with the Winter Soldier. It's actually kind of nice, seeing you look out for someone, that isn't me or Peter." Tony grunted in pain. "I'm still mad at you though, for not telling me sooner."

"Consider us even then cause I'm still mad at you about Peter."

" We're even then. "


	17. Chapter 17

Teddy was up on the roof, drinking hot chocolate and staring at the stars at midnight, wrapped in a thick blanket, since it was pretty chilly. She had just gotten home from underground fighting, since Peter made her promise not to kill people she needed an outlet for her murderous tendencies.

It had been months after the civil war that broke up the Avengers. 

Tony seemed to be doing better, at least she hoped so, he wasn't locking himself in the lab anymore. She still visited the compound everyday to check on him and annoy the shit out of him. He and Pepper got back together and were now engaged which was good, great even, she is the only woman Tony dated that Teddy could stand. Everything seemed peachy over there.

Peter though, Teddy thinks the boy loves to give people heart attacks. Weeks after the civil war, Peter goes and gets himself in trouble with some dude calling himself the vulture. The shifter almost killed him for collapsing a building on top of Peter, but reluctantly let him be since Peter told her not to.

The two still have their late night rendezvous, him checking in with Teddy so that she knows everything is fine. Teddy even met Peter's aunt, it was totally random, Teddy was eating lunch at some Chinese place when Peter and his aunt walked in. She has to be the sweetest adult Teddy has ever met. It was nice for Peter, till they both started telling each other embarrassing stories about Peter. They both laughed when Peter turned really red and buried his head in his arm.

Teddy let out a breath, finishing the hot chocolate and placing the mug on the ground next to her. She sat there for a while thinking about nothing and everything staring up at the stars lounging in a stolen beach chair. This was the reason she chose this building to live in, it was high enough she could watch the stars without the city lights drowning them out. Watching the stars always calmed her mind, making her remember the times her and Jones would drive out to the country and sit in the middle of a field drinking stolen beer watching the stars and just laying there.

Teddy and Jones met when they were in the third grade, Teddy was terrified cause all the kids in the class were one year older, she skipped a grade, and they were all really mean. She didn't have any friends because everyone thought she was weird. 

They met one day at lunchtime when Teddy saw this group of kids huddled up in a corner cheering, obviously, she had to check it out. When the little shifter got there, she was surprised to see two forth graders beating the living shit out of the quiet kid in her class, the kid was trying to fight back but since he was smaller than the two boys he was losing. 

Teddy pushed through the crowd and jumped behind one of the boys and kicked him straight in the nuts. The boy screamed and crumpled on the ground crying holding his injured nuts. 

The second boy whipped his head around after hearing his friend cry out and charged at Teddy, she side stepped him and stuck out her foot tripping him, causing him to fall hitting his face in the concrete breaking his nose.

The crowd of kids went silent and Teddy have them a look making them scamper off, she turned to the kid who was getting beat up and examined his face making sure he wasn't hurt badly before introducing herself.

"Hi, I'm Theodore Stark." The boy looked confused.

"Isn't that a boys name?" 

Teddy huffed, " Yes, but my parents wanted another boy so, " the little shifter trailed off, "Aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"Right, I'm Brian Jones." Teddy scrunched up her face.

" That is such a boring name. " Brian gasped in offence.

"No it's not."

" Yes it is. You know what? " 

"What?" Brian looked at her cautiously .

"I'm going to call you Jones." Brian raised his eyebrows in confusion .

"How exactly is that better than Brian?!" 

" It makes you sound mysterious. Brian just makes you sound like one of those old depressed people. " Jones looked at Teddy like she was crazy and just shrugged it off since she just helped him out.

From then on, the two became thick as thieves. Separate they were harmless but together was a nightmare. The two would pull pranks on the teachers and students, it got so bad they almost got suspended a few times. 

It didn't exactly help that both of them were insanely smart for their age either, when they were ten Jones had mastered computers, he could build one from scratch, and hacking, among other things. Teddy on the other hand picked up sciences and math. Both of them were in eighth grade by the time they were twelve.

It was also around this time Teddy found out she was a mutant, when she was eleven she woke up looking like her big brother and had a full blown panic attack, when she finally calmed down she turned back. It was Jones who helped her control her mutation and they learned to have fun with it, buying alcohol, driving etc. 

Jones also discovered his love for boys at first he didn't want to tell Teddy because he thought she would leave him but when he got the balls to tell her she responded with a simple, "I know," and a shrug of her shoulders continuing what they were doing.

When they were almost thirteen, they came up with the idea to break into the Pentagon to see if they could get away with it. It took Jones a week to successfully hack into it. When the hack was completed they read through the files and choked on their spit when they saw something labeled 'Area 51'. 

They came up with a plan to break in to the building to find out where Area 51 was. It took a month of planning but it went off without a hitch. Teddy shifted into one of the analysts, she stole the analyst's ID and Jones was in a van with his computer, that he built, it was portable, watching and listening through the mini camera Teddy had on her jacket, it was disguised as a button.

It was a great plan but to their disappointment, there were no aliens. They didn't care much about that because they had fun.

Jones mother died when he was fifteen, plane crash. Since she was his only family member left, he had to be put in foster care.

They both graduated high school when they were sixteen. Jones continued on to college while Teddy didn't.

They had a ritual, every weekend they would drive out to their favorite flower field in the country, with beer, and at down on the grass staring up at the stars in the quiet. They did that every weekend to get away from the city, away from Jones' annoying foster parents, away from being a Stark. They loved it here, they first found it when they were fifteen, after Jones mom's funeral. They were drunk, cruising around in a stolen Mercedes in the country side and they swerved off the road into the field. From then on, this was there field. 

Teddy joined the army when she was eighteen, at first Jones was worried as hell his best friend would get hurt and tried to change her mind but she was stubborn, he couldn't change her mind if he put a gun to his head. The shifter had always wanted to serve, to be like her hero Bucky Barnes. She always loved reading about him and wanted to be just like him when she grew up. 

She was the best sniper at the base, one of the best fighters and she excelled at making and defusing bombs. She even got a medal. This was what made the CIA interested in her in the first place. They recruited her for a black ops team, where she was their sniper.

All this time Jones and Teddy never lost touch, he updated her on everything back home. It always varied from him getting a new boyfriend or him hacking into something that could get him arrested, Teddy doubted he cared. In turn she told him about her missions and everything going on at the agency, even though it was classified information, Teddy didn't give a shit because she knew Jones would still find out anyway.

It was the last mission Teddy had done for the CIA when she screwed up. One of her team mates had gotten captured and Teddy went to save him. She had to shift multiple times before she got him out and thought he was unconscious when she shifted back to her form but he wasn't and saw what she did. 

She hadn't even realised till their next mission, Teddy was suspicious during the entire ride, her team mates were unusually quiet the whole ride and they had their hands on their weapons, 'discreetly' eyeing her the whole time. 

When the truck came to a stop, the five of them got out and Teddy looked around to see they were in the middle of the desert.

"Guys what's going on?" Teddy turned around to see her entire team pointing their weapons at her. Fred, the muscles of the group, spoke up first with a snare.

"Bosses say we can't have no freaks in the agency." Teddy stilled and looked at the rest of them, disgust clear on their faces. 

"What?" Teddy stepped forward and they took two steps back. "What are you talking about?" 

" Mr. Reyes and the board said they don't want any mutant freaks in the CIA, told us to take you out. " George, the dude she saved, said nodding in agreement with Alisha, the only other female in the team.

"Get on your knees freak, we'll make this quick." Todd, the leader of the team, kicked the back of her knees, forcing her to kneel. Teddy placed her hands behind her head, making them think she was surrendering, pulled two throwing knives from her collar and throwing them in the heads of Alisha and Fred. Teddy got up quickly when the other two started shooting at her, she pulled another knife from her boot and hit George straight in the heart. 

Todd was left now, Teddy dodged as many bullets as she could before diving behind the truck. She hissed in pain and looked down seeing that she had been shot in her abdomen. The shifter groaned and looked around for something to kill Todd with since she used all her knives. The fucker was shooting at the truck and there was no way she move from there.

Teddy got an idea in her head and pulled out her phone and rewired it to make a small explosion to distract Todd, like Jones had taught her. When it worked, she quickly ran out from behind the truck to pull one of her knives out of a corpse and ran at Todd, jumping on his back, ramming the knife into his neck and dragging it sideways. She jumped off of his back when he fell forward.

Teddy dropped to the ground in pain, from the wound and exhaustion. 

After crawling back to the truck the shifter wrapped her wounds and drove the bullet riddled truck to the nearest city where she ditched it and stole a car to get to Jones.

Jones lived in the middle of nowhere, just on the outskirts of their favourite field, his closest neighbor was two miles away from him.

When she got to Jones', she told him everything and he agreed to let her stay there. They were fine for about two days 'til the CIA found her. She was on the porch fiddling with a walkie talkie she stole from the truck when vans pulled up in front of the house. 

Teddy ran inside where Jones was, in the kitchen at the table on his laptop.

"Get down!" But Teddy was too late, the shooting had already started and Jones got hit twice in his stomach and shoulder before dropping to the ground. When Teddy got to him, he was heavily breathing, she dragged him to the back door, picking up the shot gun from behind the door.

"Shit! I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have dragged you into this." She tried putting pressure on the wound but he was bleeding to heavily. She dragged him out to the field before they dropped.

"Your shit is my shit Teddy." The agents were still shooting up the house, it wouldn't be long before they figure out the two weren't inside.

"Shit I can't help you." Teddy was panicking, she knew her friend wasn't going to survive this, her brown eyes filled with tears. Jones looked up at her and raised his bloody hand to her face.

"You have to get out of here." He weakly stated. Teddy shook her head.

"I am not leaving you." 

" Teddy, we both know I'm not gonna make it. Get out. " Jones breathed out.

"No." The agents stopped shooting now meaning they would go inside to see if she was dead or not.

"You have to leave me I'll be alright. I going to be with momma now." Teddy shook her head and held his wound, his breathing was getting slower. Tears were running down her face as she shook her head. 

"No. I'm not leaving you here."

Jones let out a breath, "I love you Ted." His hand fell from her face.

" Jones? " She shook his chest seeing that he was no longer breathing, she felt for his pulse only to find nothing. Jones was dead. Teddy dropped her head on his chest weeping.

Five agents were coming out the back door towards the field. Teddy got up on her knees picking up the shot gun and shot three in the neck while the other two ducked for cover.

The gun was out of bullets, Teddy threw it aside and walked over to one of the dead agents picking up his gun and went to find the other two agents.

When Teddy killed all of the agents, she called the cops to report gunshots and ran back to Jones and dragged his body where the cops would find him.

She dropped next to him and laid her head on his chest and stayed there until she heard sirens coming up the road, Teddy lifted her head and wiped her tears and kissed his cheek.

"Goodbye, Brian Jones."

Teddy remembered that day being the worst day of her life. The satisfaction she got from blowing the CIA's board of directors to shit didn't even make her feel better. So Teddy went into hiding and didn't contact Tony for fear of what happened to Jones would happen to him to, it was a stupid thought, him being Iron man and everything but she needed to be cautious. She changed her name from Stark to Jones and became a mercenary to make money since the CIA seized her accounts.

Teddy was brought out of her thoughts when she heard Spider-Man land on the rooftop.

"Hey, Teddy."

" Hey, Spiderboy. "


	18. Chapter 18

It was a Sunday night, since outside was a little chilly, Teddy was wear a black oversized knit sweater with black skinny jeans and his regular black combat boots. He was sitting on the ledge of his roof top watching the city below him, swinging his legs back and forth, humming a tune, cleaning his sniper rifle. 

This was Teddy's version of relaxing, other than murdering evil dudes, in his opinion there was nothing more relaxing than cleaning a gun, pulling it apart and putting it back together made him breath easy. Other people have sex or hang out with their friends but not Teddy. The shifter was actually repulsed by that sort of relaxing, the idea of going out with friends and do legal shit or go to a bar was idiotic and boring. Teddy doesn't even drink and is socially awkward.

Teddy also has never understood everyone's fascination with sex. He's actually never had sex, when he was in high school he tried with boys, girls and even with older people but he was repulsed by the idea of ever doing something like that and gave up on it.

Back when Jones was alive, for fun and relaxing, the two of them would break into museums and high end jewellery stores, not to steal anything but to see if they could do it. They both liked the challenge it offered, if they could be so good and get away with it. They even got into one of the most secured banks in the world, they made it to the vault before the cops swarmed the place.

But Jones had been dead for four years now and Teddy didn't have his partner in crime, so cleaning guns and killing evil people was the next best thing. Maybe one day, he would find someone to break into places with, but for now he would stick to cleaning his rifles.

When Teddy finished reassembling the rifle, his phone went off in his back pocket. Teddy recognised it was the ringtone for the house alarm, indicating someone had broken in.

He pulled his phone from his back pocket and switched it to the cameras in the apartment. 

"Fuck!" 

People in tactical gear and assault rifles, and CIA across their back, swarmed inside searching the place. Teddy could hear each of them hell clear, it looked to be at least ten agents. 

Teddy packed up the rifle in the guitar case and strapped it on his back, just in case he had to start running.

"Sir, Miss Stark isn't on the premises." The leader of the team spoke into his coms device.

"I sending the rest of the team to sweep the rest of the building, including the roof but the apartment is squeaky clean, I don't even think someone lives here." 

The shifter couldn't here what was being said on the other side of the conversation but he knew he had to get the hell out of there. Only problem is that he was fifty stories high and the agents were coming up the fire escape and the stairs to the roof on the inside. This buildings next to his apartment building were to far apart, the closest one being approximately fifteen feet but it was taller by four stories, so Teddy was a sitting duck. 

The shifter groaned and switched off the phone and stuffed it in the guitar case, he looked around for any hiding spaces, quickly settling on a damp corner before setting down the guitar case and shifting into a black cat. He jumped on top of the case and curled into a ball to make it look like he was sleeping.

He could hear the foot steps coming up the fire escape and the door to the stairs opening. Teddy curled into a tighter ball and observed them, they were spread out, pointing their flashlights at every corner, quietly and slowly stalking around the expanse of the roof. 

His heart started beating fast when he realized that two agents were coming the way, he praying that his dark fur would blend into the darkness and they would think nothing of the dark corner. 

His prayers had been answered when the two agents moved along not even giving the corner second look, continuing their search before meeting with the rest of the team.

"No one's up here sir, maybe HQ got bad intel." 

"Probably, it wouldn't be the first time. Just thought after four years of nothing we would finally catch that mutant freak. Alright we're gonna go back to the apartment to see if anyone comes back tonight."

" Yes sir. " 

Teddy heard foot steps going down the staircase before heading the door shut. He looked up to make sure the coast was clear before shifting back to his form and pulling the phone from the guitar case. He switched back on the cameras and watched as the agents started searching his shit waiting for him to come back.

"Shit." Teddy gathered the case from the ground and silently made his way to the fire escape where he started climbing down. As he was going down, the shifter activated his security protocol Clean House and started running faster down the escape when the thirty second countdown was displayed on his phone.

He switched back to the camera feed to see if the agents were still inside which they were and sped up again when the countdown hit twenty seconds. 

Four more flights and ten seconds left Teddy slowed down when he was finally out of the blast zone and continued jogging down the escape. 

When he got to the bottom, the countdown hit one and his apartment blew up and shook the entire building and the ground. Teddy stumbled a bit before regaining his balance and looked up in awe.

"Shit, I didn't realize it was that strong. That's the last time I learn how to make a bomb from a crazy person." 

The shifter stayed a little longer to make sure the blast didn't affect the other apartments and put it self out like what he created it to do. When the fire started getting smaller and turning to smoke, Teddy ran up to a rusty car, the only vehicle he legally owned, in the middle of the alley behind his building, opened the trunk and took out his backpack and duffle bag. 

Taking off the guitar case and replacing it with the backpack, he put the duffle into his shoulder and held the case in his hand.

The shifter closed the trunk and walked to the drivers side opening the door, starting the car and driving off.


	19. Chapter 19

"Holy shit!" Peter screamed in fright.

Teddy jumped out of the bed he was lying in holding up a knife he seemed to pull from nowhere. He looked like he just woke up, with his messy hair and puffy eyes.

"What's going on? Who do I have to kill?" Frantically looking around, he realized what was going on and put down the knife.

"Peter, I was waiting on you forever. Must of fallen asleep." Teddy yawned and sat back down on the bed. Peter out down the bag he had been carrying and walked over to him.

"What are you doing in my room? How did you get in my room?"

" I came here to tell you we can't meet up at our usual. I recently moved out due to, " Teddy paused looking for the right words, "my place getting blown up."

Peter looked at the shifter with wide eyes, "Who blew your apartment? Did anyone get hurt?"

"I did and no one important got hurt, just some rats, they got fried." Teddy got up and looked around Peter's bedroom.

"Where are you gonna go now? And you didn't answer my other question." Peter asked sitting on the bed looking at the shifter for answers. 

" I'm gonna stay with Tony for now. You should really lock your windows." Teddy picked up and random gadget, twirling it in his hands. "I've been here waiting for you to get home from school for two hours now."

"Why didn't you just call me? Instead of scaring the crap out of me." 

" My phone died last night, didn't get a chance to charge it. " Teddy huffed and started walking to the window. "That's what I came to tell you. You probably aren't gonna see me for a while but I'm still gonna call and make sure you didn't get your stupid ass killed. Call me if you need me." 

"Bye Teddy."

The shifter climbed out of the window and dropped down on the sidewalk. 

He started walking to his old beat up car, which was a few blocks away, when he heard a noise coming from an alley. Teddy stopped walking and looked towards the alley and shook his head and kept walking. He heard the noise again, like rattling in the garbage. 

Curiosity was eating at the shifter now and after a small debate with his common sense, Teddy walked down the alley to check it out.

The alley was relatively normal, garbage everywhere and smelt like shit, nothing looked out of the ordinary and Teddy was about to turn back when he saw a glint of silver and paused.

After another debate with his common sense, he walked towards the silver glint slowly and cautiously and calmed down after seeing what it was.

Teddy was confused now because the silver glint turned out to be the hilt of a sword. He frowned slightly and picked up the sword, immediately feeling a light buzzing going through his arm. The shifter dropped sword in shock.

"What the fuck was that?" He whispered in curiosity and bent down hesitantly picking it up, feeling the buzzing again. Teddy slid the sword out of the sheath and studied it. It was a broad sword with a black square gem in the hilt, the weirdest thing about the sword though, was that the blade looked like black glass. 

The shifter ran his finger along the blade wincing at the sharpness when it cut him. 

"I see you've found your sword, Grim?" Teddy spun around in surprise, having not heard anyone coming down here. He noticed an old regal looking lady with silver hair wearing an emerald and black robe, smiling at him. 

"Hi, do I know you?" The shifter was fucking confused now.

The lady laughed lightly and answered, "Not yet. Theodore Stark, you are destined for great things but first you must sleep, you must unlock the rest of your power and we do not have the time." She was inches from his face now, with her hand caressing his cheek in a motherly fashion. " The sword is yours. "

"Wait, what?" Teddy questioned, right before he got a face full of powder. The shifter started dropping, his eyes were heavy and he felt like he hadn't slept in months.

"Sleep my child, you will feel better when you wake." The gentle voice coaxed him further into a deep sleep and everything went dark.

...................................................

Teddy woke up with a groan, blinking a few times. He sat up and looked around, it was night time now meaning he had been asleep for hours, even though it feels like he's been asleep for years.

Prepared to stand up, Teddy felt something in his lap and looked down at it, recognizing the sword. He stood up and dusted his pants before looking at the sword.

It was at this moment when Teddy realized he felt different, he couldn't describe it, he didn't feel bad just different, better even, like someone unlocked his mind and released something truly fascinating.

The shifter sheathed the sword and strapped it to his back walking out of the alley.

He decided he would figure this out tomorrow because right now he was hungry.


	20. Chapter 20

Weeks after the incident with the old lady. That was when Teddy started noticing what was different.

Her shifting started getting out of control, it was much stronger than it had been before. There were mornings where she would wake up as something she has never turned into it even seen in person, like snakes and bears. There was a morning when she woke up with fucking branches for arms, Teddy had never been able to shift into a fucking tree before. She thought it was cool though, running from the cops would be so much easier once she got it under control. 

That wasn't the only thing though, a week ago, when she finished showering, she went to turn off the pipe and the hot water knob came off in her hands but she just shrugged it off. That was nothing compared to the time she shut her car door, the glass shattered and the door came off, which shocked the shit out of her, she just sat there for twenty minutes straight with wide eyes, staring at the door.

The thing that actually had Teddy freaking out happened this morning. She was in the training room practising with her new sword, getting used to it, she'd never fought with a sword before so she decided to try it out. She was doing well so far but today, she accidentally sliced her leg open. When the wound started closing up, Teddy screamed, grabbed the sword and ran to Tony's work shop.

The shifter burst through the doors panic written on her face, she was breathing heavily with wide eyes. Tony was startled when he looked up at her, never having ever seen her panicked in his life.

"What's wrong? Are you dying?" He rushed across the room to her, looking her over to make sure she was alright and slightly panicked more when he saw the blood on her leg.

" I think I have been experimented on by aliens. " Tony paused, looking at his little sister like she was insane.

"What? Where did you get that sword?" Teddy pushed past him and went to sit on the couch.

"This old lady gave it to me then proceeded to knock me out." Teddy got up and started pacing, biting her finger nails.

"What? You let an old woman knock you out? You're really losing your touch sis." The shifter glared holes in Tony's head and he stopped giggling like a schoolgirl.

"She snuck up on me and was talking about unlocking powers and blew some red dust in my fucking face and knocked me out. When I woke up she was gone and left the sword." Teddy stopped pacing and picked up the sword. " And then this happened, "

She took the sword and dragged the blade across her fore arm.

"What the fuck?!" Tony ran across the room to stop her before dropping abruptly, after seeing the wound close up. He looked at his sister with eyes wide in astonishment.

"That not the only thing, before I could only turn into people I've seen in person and shifting into something anything other than a human took a lot of work, which is why I could only turn into a cat, but this morning when I woke up as a deer. A fucking deer. And yesterday I gently shut my car door and the thing comes off in my hands." 

Teddy took a breath and started pacing again, Tony watched his sister freak out silently, having calmed down a little, before asking, "When was this?"

" The day after I blew up my rat infested apartment. " The shifter ran a hand through her curly brown hair.

"That was six weeks ago Theodore, why didn't you tell me about the crazy lady sooner?" 

"You were busy with the nano thing and I didn't want to bother you. Plus it would've been pointless, I tried to track her down and nothing, it's like she doesn't even exist. I looked through SHIELD files, HYDRA files, you name it she doesn't turn up. Which means she's an alien. I got experimented on by aliens. And I can't remember. What if they took my innocence?"

Tony snorted, Teddy shot him a look and he immediately put his hands up in surrender.

"Sorry." Tony walked back over to what he was working on before the interruption. "Why don't you just examine your blood? See what's different."

Teddy stopped pacing and looked at Tony smiling.

"That's a good idea, I could compare it to the blood I have stored here since last year." 

Tony paused and choked on his spit. " Why the hell do you have blood stored here? "

"I wasn't gonna store at my apartment. It was in case of emergencies. Wait. Do you even have that kind of equipment here?"

" In Bruce's lab, FRIDAY will show you where it is. "

"Great. Show me the way baby girl."

"Right this way Miss. Stark."

Tony rolled his eyes and went back to work.

..........................................................

Teddy came back to the workshop a few hours later, eating a muffin while holding a tablet and carrying a plate with three more muffins on it.

"Where the hell did you get muffins from?" 

"I made them when I was waiting for the results, it's blueberry and banana, want one?" 

Tony took one from the plate and are it. "So, you figure it out?"

" Yes I did. So basically, my mutation is on crack. " The shifter calmly stated, sitting in the chair opposite her brother. Tony looked up at her expectantly.

"What does that mean?" 

"Look for yourself." Teddy passed her brother the tablet, " The left is before and right is after. "

Tony took the tablet and studied the results, frowning as he read it over. The shifter picked up a second muffin. 

"It looks like it's developing or something, meaning that you might get even more surprises like, talking to fish or flying. What about the sword?" Tony slid the tablet back over to her.

"I examined it already. The material it's made out of is not from earth and it's sharp as shit, I accidentally cut down a tree last week, with one swing."

"That was you?" 

" Right, sorry bout that. " Teddy grimaced. "Anyway, how's the nano tech coming along? You've been working on it for years now. Tell me you got somewhere with it so I can try it out." 

"First of all, you are never trying this out, you would probably destroy it. And secondly, watch this."

Tony stood up, picking up something that was glowing and placed it on his chest, tapping it twice. Nothing happened at first, Teddy was about to say something when metal started spreading across the expanse of Tony's chest, going to his shoulders down his arms. The shifter watched it in awe and reached out to touch it but it retracted and went back to its housing.

"As you can see it's still a work in progress." Tony removed the housing from his chest and put it back on the table.

"Man, that's cool as shit. Why couldn't I be an engineer?" 

Tony chuckled, "You would be more of a nightmare if you could do shit like this. You can make a bomb from household cleaners and a phone, strong enough to take out four blocks. Imagine what the hell could you do if you were and engineer."

Teddy nodded in agreement, "I see what you mean."


	21. Chapter 21

Teddy was laying awake in bed, it was two in the morning but he just couldn't sleep for some fucking reason. He tried everything counting sheep, drinking, exercising. Nothing was working. Now, here he was, a little tipsy, staring up at the ceiling with a blunt between his fingers, thinking about why the fuck people think counting sheep would help you sleep.

"Mr. Stark, it would appear boss is having a nightmare." Teddy jumped a little at FRIDAY before registering what she just told him.

"Thank you, baby girl." Teddy got up out of bed, grabbing two more blunts and his lighter, going down the hall to his brothers room.

Pepper was away on a business trip so it was just him and Tony for a couple more days. Hopefully she would never have to find out about the shifter getting his brother high. Pepper was the only woman alive that Teddy was truly afraid of but he would never admit it.

When the shifter got to Tony's bedroom, he opened the door to see his brother tossing and turning. Teddy put the blunt between his lips and walked up to the bed, sitting next to Tony.

"Tony." 

The shifter held his brother by his shoulder and gently shook him awake.

"Hey, Tony wake up." Tony shifted slightly , he was drenched in sweat, shaking like a leaf. Teddy lightly shook him again and Tony gasped sitting up in the bed, breathing deeply. He looked disoriented for a moment before he looked at his little brother, who just calmly stared back at him, puffing smoke out of his nose.

"Is that pot?" Tony asked.

" Yes, want some. " Teddy took another blunt from behind his ears and held it out to Tony, who shrugged and took it. The shifter handed him the lighter and climbed into bed sitting next to Tony.

"Where did you get this?"

"Some kid at Peter's school. I bought his whole stash and told him if I caught him again I would call the police." 

" What were you doing at Peter's school? Did you go from murder addict to stalker now? " 

Teddy glared at Tony and smiled going back to the blunt.

"I see you're still having nightmares." 

Tony turned to glare at his brother, thinking he was making fun of him, when he saw that Teddy as not joking, he sighed, taking a hit of the blunt.

"Yes. They're the worst. They only get this bad when Pep's not here." 

" I've never had a nightmare, so I can't relate, but from what I've seen I glad I never had one. "

Tony shot his brother and incredulous look, "You've never had a nightmare? You're lying. Not even after Jones?"

Teddy let out a puff of smoke, "I've never been afraid of anything enough to have a nightmare about it. Unless that clown dream I had when I was ten counts?" He took another drag. "Even after Jones, I had seen so many bloody corpses before he got shot up, when it happened, it didnt even phase me. It was the, getting used to having no one to break into places with, part that really got to me. I had never felt so utterly alone in all my life."

" Damn, this got depressing real fast. Aren't we a pair? "

"A pair of fucking screw ups? Yes we are."

When his blunt got to a stub, Teddy put it out and put his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Tony scoffed beside him.

"Speak for yourself."

" Whatever. " Teddy scoffed.

It got quiet for a little while, both of them spaced out and lightly buzzed. 

"You find out anything about the aliens?" Tony asked.

"Not yet, hopefully they don't come back, I have enough shit to deal with. I'm running four times faster than I used to and my senses feel like they're on crack or something, since yesterday I've been hearing everyone's heartbeats, and as cool as that sounds, it isn't, I'm thinking about pulling out my hair now."

" Nothing else? You're not flying or anything, are you? "

"No and I hope it never happens either. I'm terrified of heights."

Tony turned to look at Teddy, surprised at this new information.

"Really? What else are you afraid of?"

" Clowns, elevators and large bodies of water. " 

"That explains why you always take the stairs. Also why you never went to the beach when we were younger."

" I also hate fighting, if we're gonna talk about my peeves. "

Tony got up and turned to his little brother with a look of disbelief , shaking his head. "You're joking right? You have got to be kidding? Right?"

"I kid you not. Why do you think I kill everybody before they get too close. I'm great at it but I just don't feel like wasting my time when I could just shoot the fucker in the face or cut his head of. "

"Wow." 

" I know. I'm amazing. " Teddy yawned. "Anyway, I'm going to sleep, you don't mind right?"

" Knock yourself out Ted. " Tony shrugged and lay on his back looking up at the ceiling. Feeling something furry crawl on his chest, Tony looked down and saw that Teddy had shifted into a cat and curled up in his chest. He smiled and lightly scratched behind its ears before drifting off to sleep.


	22. Chapter 22

"Ugghh," Teddy groaned and sat up, rubbing his temples with his fingers, trying to dull the ache in his head. The shifter squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them and blinked in confusion when he saw he was not in his bed, in fact Teddy didn't even know how he got here. Here being a massive room that looked like it belong to a palace. It was dark, the floors were made of black and white marble with black drapes covering the windows and pillars made of gold. 

The last thing Teddy remembered was burning a priest alive - long story - and then nothing. He knew he hadn't been captured by any government agency because there was no way they could afford someplace like this, at that thought the shifter relaxed slightly but froze when he realized someone kidnapped him.

Again.

Teddy stood up from his position on the floor and looked down at himself. He was wearing a black tunic with black leather pants and black boots, he also realized that most of his weapons were gone, the only one left being the strange sword, the lady gave to him some months ago, laying on the floor in front of him.

"What the fuck is going on?" Teddy whispered, running his hands through his curly brown hair.

"You have been chosen, by me, to be my reaper." A gentle voice spoke up from behind him. Teddy spun around, startled by the intruder, seeing the same old lady who gave him the sword.

"Who the hell are you? Chosen to be your what? Where the fuck am I?"

"Patience child, one question at a time." Teddy huffed and nodded. " Now, to answer your first question, I am Azrael and you are in my palace. "

Teddy choked on his spit, "Azrael? As in Angel of Death? Oh God, I knew killing a priest was a bad idea." 

Azrael shook her head on protest, "This isn't about that. I'm actually glad you got rid of that monster. What kind of person does that to a child?"

The shifter sighed in relief, "Then why am I here?" 

"I want to offer you a job."

" Really?" Teddy frowned in confusion, "What kind of job? " 

Azrael stepped closer to Teddy, "I want you to be my new reaper. My last one from earth was killed a few years back and I'm in desperate need of a new one."

"What's a reaper? And what do I do exactly ?"

"My reapers collect the souls of the dead and bring them to me. What you would be doing is something different, you would collect the worst of them, the evil you fight against everyday. The ones my other reapers are not trained or qualified to collect."

"You want me to be your assassin?" Teddy asked slowly.

" Yes, that is exactly what I want you to be, I would give you assignments to carry out and after you've carried them out you would bring there soul to me. Follow me Theodore. "

Azrael walked off with Teddy following her.

"Wait, how exactly am I supposed to bring you a soul? Or even collect it? Or get back here?" 

They turned down a corridor entering a room filled with weapons. Swords and daggers lined the walls along with cross bows, axes and bow staffs. Teddy followed Azrael into the room connected to the weapons room.

"That's what the sword is for darling. Every person you kill with the sword,their soul basically gets sucked into the gem. As for the getting back here part, I would give you a talisman that works as a portal to any where you want to go." Azrael stopped at a door and swung it open.

"This job also comes with a uniform." 

In the middle of the room, there was an all black outfit that looked like it was channelling assassin's creed, a hooded tunic, leather pants and combat boots. It had different compartments and sheaths for his weapons. It even had holsters for his guns.

Teddy was in love.

"Why do I feel like you're rushing this? Like you're desperate for me to say yes. What's going on?" Teddy questioned.

Azrael sighed, "There is an impending threat to the universe and we need as many recruits as we can get, I've already got all of my reapers looking for Thanos but we can't find him. Every time we turn up to where he was all we find is bodies, thousands of them, and now he's looking for the stones, he's already got two of them, if he gets all six of those stones, trillions will die, people, animals, children. We need to stop him before that happens. Now are you with us?"

" Yes. " Teddy answered not even thinking about it. He had been ready to say yes when Azrael mentioned children would die at the hands of this mad fucker and he knew he would do everything in his power to stop him, even if it meant he died. "When do I start?"

" Now, my child. But first there is something I need you to do. "


	23. Chapter 23

Teddy couldn't believe what he was seeing.

When Azrael sent him on this mission, he didn't think it would be this horrible. Bodies floating through space, hundreds of them, all dead and Teddy was pissed, he couldn't wait to drive his sword through Thanos' skull.

The shifter closed his eyes and took a moment to focus before looking for what he came for.

It took awhile, but after sorting through hundreds of men, women and a few children, he finally found who he was looking for, Teddy grabbed the body before it could float away, checking its face to make sure he had the correct person. He sighed in relief and grabbed the white stone Azrael gave him, from his breast pocket and placing it on the body's chest.

As soon as the stone was in place, it started glowing a bright emerald green, gradually getting brighter until eventually Teddy had to look away. All of a sudden the glowing stopped, the shifter looked back to find the stone, now black and turning to dust. The body floated there for a minute still dead, until a green glow wrapped itself around the body and sunk into its skin. It started seizing before stopping and gasping for air.

Teddy quickly made a portal and held the body bridal style before stepping through.

..............................................

Rhodey and Bruce were at the compound waiting for Cap to bring Vision back, catching up with one another and what not, when a portal opened up in the room and a figure walking through holding someone in their arms. Both of them scrambled to find a weapon to defend themselves as the portal closed.

"Who the hell are you?" Rhodey asked. The figure looked confused for a minute before it clicked.

" Oh, right. " They put down the person in their arms before shifting into someone familiar.

"Teddy?! Where the hell have you been? And what are you wearing?" Rhodey out down his weapon followed by Bruce, who studied the person laid down on the couch before running over.

"What happened to Loki?"

"He had a little accident, don't worry he'll be fine in a couple minutes. Where's Tony?" 

Rhodey shifted awkwardly before answering, "In a spaceship, in space."

Bruce cleared his throat finishing the statement, "Some aliens abducted a wizard to get his stone so Tony and some spider kid went to get him."

Teddy frowned and crossed his arms, pouting, "How come he gets to fight aliens." 

Rhodey rolled his eyes, "Wow, you haven't changed a bit." Teddy grinned at the statement .

"Thank you."

Loki gasped and sat up, a terrified look in his wide eyes, looking around frantically and slightly disoriented, grabbing at his neck. He snapped out of it as soon as he saw Bruce's concerned look.

"Where is Thor?" He asked in a scratchy voice .

"I didn't see him when I went to pick you up." 

Teddy knelt beside him, checking him over for any injuries. Seeing his neck healed fully now.

"How am I still alive? I remember Thanos snapping my neck."

"My boss said something about it not being your time or something, so she gave me a magic rock to heal you."

" Who's your boss Teddy? " Rhodey asked.

"That is not important now, what's important is..." Teddy was cut off by a ringing, " Who's calling you Rhodes? "

Rhodey ran over to check, "Its Secretary Ross, you might wanna get out of here."

Teddy nodded and helped Loki up to his feet before walking out of the room with Bruce in tow.

.....................................................

Teddy left Bruce and Loki talking, going straight to her room to clean up a little, since she was still covered in ashes and blood from her mission with the priest and she needed a shower before going off to kill the purple bitch. The shifter laid out all of her weapons on the bed before taking off her uniform and hopping in the shower.

When she was finished she dried off and got dressed in black cargo pants and combat boots with a grey Henley and her black bullet proof jacket she made, Tony said she looked like the female Winter Soldier in it but she didn't give a shit. She sheathed her daggers and sword, and tucked her guns in their holster.

Teddy sighed and looked in the mirror before braiding her hair in two and nodded in approval before exiting her room, going back to Loki and Bruce.

It seemed like they had some visitors, all of whom were glaring at Loki who in turn was glaring at them.

"What did I miss?" Teddy asked.

Cap and his little team snapped out of their glaring contest with the God and looked at her in suspicion.

"Who are you?" Natasha stepped forward .

Teddy was about to answer but Vision answered first, "She is Tony's sister, Theodore, she's been staying here for months now."

Cap narrowed his eyes, "You mean the criminal that killed all those agents four years ago?"

" Yes, that was me. I'll admit, that was my finest moment. They were horrible people. " 

Teddy stepped into the room, ignoring all the stares, rummaging around for extra bullets for her guns.

"You killed fifteen hundred agents in three days. Good people. How can that be your finest moment?" The disappointment in Cap's voice was clear, Teddy looked back at him for a moment before shrugging and going back to her search.

"They tried to kill me first and they killed my best friend. Then they tried to kill me again and again and again. You get my point? Bingo!!"

Teddy found the box of bullets and pocketed the clips before putting back the box, she turned around clapped her hands, "Now where are we going?"

Sam looked at her confused and spoke up, " Wait, you're helping us? "

"Tony would be so pissed if he found out I didn't help you guys out when he gets back, so, yes I'm helping. So where are we going?"

Cap sighed in defeat, "This conversation is not over." He rubbed his face, "We're going to Wakanda, so suit up."


	24. Chapter 24

"I never got to thank you."

Teddy looked at Loki, confused. They were in the farthest corner away from everyone in the jet on their way to Wakanda. Since their presence was not welcome amongst the majority of the heroes, Teddy and Loki decided to sit beside each other in the jet. They had been silent for awhile before Loki broke it.

"Thank me for what?" 

"Saving my life, most people wouldn't have done it, given my history, so, thank you." Teddy could hear the honesty in his voice and her eyes softened a little.

"You're welcome Loki." 

"Why is it, you don't treat me like the others? You seem very comfortable in my presence. You midgardians think of me as a monster, do you not?"

Teddy turned her head toward Loki and sighed, "They do see you as a monster, but not me. I've seen worse. And it would be hypocritical of me to treat you like one. I've lost count of how many people I've killed, but I know it's up in the four thousands." She confessed looking him directly in the eye, " You couldn't scare me if you tried. "

Loki smirked, "I like you. You are not as pathetic as the rest of the midgardians I've met."

Teddy giggled, "Thank you." They sat in silence for a moment before Teddy asked, " Why was everyone glaring at you when I walked in earlier. "

Loki rolled his eyes, "I merely suggested we kill the android and destroy the stone in his head before Thanos could retrieve it, if you hadn't entered when you did, the little witch probably would have tried to kill me."

Teddy snorted.

"I agree, but we couldn't if we wanted to. Vision's made of vibranium, it's indestructible, we would have to find a way to get it out, then destroy it. Which is probably the reason we're going to Wakanda."

Loki groaned and put his head in his hands, "I cannot believe she is willing to risk trillions of lives because she's in love with the damn thing."

Teddy hummed in agreement and rubbed his back gently, "Humans are too sentimental for their own good but if this goes south we'll need a plan. Do you still have your magic?"

Loki opened his palm and a green butterfly appeared before disappearing, he turned to Teddy, "What can you do?"

Teddy smirked and shifted into Loki, "I am burdened with glorious purpose."

" Oh, this'll be such fun. "

.........................................................

When they finally landed, Teddy and Loki got off the jet last. She strapped her sword to her back and stretched out before joining the others. The shifter looked around, studying everyone like she always did when meeting people. She glanced across at Loki and saw him doing the same, he caught her eye and they both nodded at each other and looked away.

Teddy walked up to greet the king, shaking his hand, "Your Highness, I'm Theodore Stark and this is Loki, thank you for having us."

"Please, call me T'Challa. Welcome to Wakanda." He smiled gently, releasing her hand.

Teddy nodded and stepped back with Loki. The two of them walked behind everyone as T'Challa spoke, making mental notes of everything they passed and were both snapped out of their thoughts by Steve.

"Stark, Loki. You two are staying down here with Buck and Sam." With one last glare, the Captain turned and joined everyone else, leaving the four of them alone.

Teddy waited until they were out of sight before turning to Bucky with a grin on her face.

"So, this is why you don't call anymore?" 

Bucky scratched his head sheepishly, "I sorta lost the phone in the fight."

Teddy's grin widened before tackling him into a hug, after awhile she pulled away and grabbed his face, looking him over.

"So, you're okay now? All the shit finally gone?" Bucky gently pulled his face out of her form grip.

" Yes, I'm fine now. Thank you. For everything. "

"You're welcome, Doll." 

Bucky groaned softly."You're not gonna stop calling me that are you?"

Teddy giggled lightly, "Nope."

Sam interrupted, "Okay, what the hell is going on? How do you two know each other."

Bucky grinned, "She helped me get out of Washington." Sam's eyes widened and he was about to ask some more questions before Teddy cut him off.

" Alright, enough of this, Loki and I will scan the perimeter and look out for evil aliens. " 

Teddy threw up the peace sign and walked away with Loki. She pulled out her to check on the tracker she put on the king to find out where Vision was being held, they walked in silence before Teddy had enough and put away her phone.

"You've been really quiet since we got here, what's up Loki?" 

Loki looked across at Teddy and sighed, "I'm worried about Thor. What if he's dead? Or worse?"

They stopped walking and Teddy rested her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"I'm sure Thor's fine, he'll probably make some big dramatic entrance and have everyone cheering. Now, are you ready?"

Loki grinned in excitement , "Of course, I'm ready."

He was cut off by a ship landing on the barrier and exploding, they both looked up.

"Let's go. Game faces on."

"What does that mean?" Loki asked confused.

" I'll tell you later darling. " Teddy checked her phone again.


	25. Chapter 25

The battle raged on, the heroes being gravely out numbered but still putting up a hell of a fight. Thor's arrival eased things slightly, but not enough, they were struggling down there.

Scarlet Witch, watched from the lab as everything went down, looking between Vision and the battle debating whether she should go down to help or not. The decision was eventually made for her when the aliens brought in the bigger shit.

As soon as the little witch left, one of the aliens, barged into the lab, incapacitating the guards and making its way down to the panicked princess and Vision. He went to grab the princess only for his hand to go straight through, everyone in the room started disappearing until the lab was empty. He was stunned for a moment before suddenly being kicked across the room. He snarled and looked up to see Teddy with her sword drawn, grinning from ear to ear.

"Surprise!" 

Teddy launched herself at him again, grabbing him by the waist and going through a window toward the trees below them. The shifter released the alien and used her talisman to teleport to the ground.

When the alien crashed he jumped up looking around, snarling, his grip on his staff tightened. He heard footsteps coming from behind him and he quickly turned around swinging his staff around coming face to face with no one. Everything was quiet again and the alien turned around gripping the staff tighter.

As soon as he turned, Teddy swung her sword cutting his ugly head clean off his equally ugly body. Blood spattered all over Teddy's face and she grimaced, frantically wiping it off.

"Ew, gross. It's in my mouth!" Frantically spitting alien blood out of her mouth . When the taste was gone Teddy wiped her mouth and stood up straight.

She looked down at the limp body and kicked it to make sure he was actually dead before picking up his weapon and teleporting to where the princess and Vision actually were.

Since Loki was still banged up from earlier, they both agreed he should be left out of most of the action, so he cloaked both of them so no one else could see them in the lab. She walked over to Loki, who she left to watch the android, he was already staring at her, grimacing at the blood on her face.

"I take it the plan went well?"

"Of course it went well Loki, it was our plan after all." Loki grinned and turned back to the princess . "How much time left?"

" The princess should be finished in a minute. "

"Great, onto phase two?" Teddy looked across at the trickster.

" Yes, onto phase two. "

..................................................

Steve ran over as fast as he could to help Vision, only to find and headless alien and no Vision in sight.

"Guys, something's wrong, Vision isn't here."

" Captain Rogers, Vision is still in the lab. The stone was successfully removed, he should be awake anytime now." Princess Shuri answered in slight confusion, "He never left the lab."

Steve's eyebrow furrowed, "What? Then who fell from the window?" 

"Does anybody have eyes on Stark or Loki?" Rhodey asked.

"Negative. I haven't seen either them since we landed."

A chorus of negatives answered until Bucky answered, "Her and Loki ran off somewhere after you left."

" What? And you let them? " Steve asked incredulously.

"She would be stabbed me if I tried to stop them besides they're in our side. I think."

Steve ran a hand through to hair in frustration. "Rendezvous to me." 

Seconds later, Rhodey landed next to him and observed the body before nodding, "Teddy definitely did that."

Bucky, Sam, Wanda and Natasha ran up behind them.

"What are they up to?" Steve asked himself.

" Whatever it is, we aren't gonna find out until they want us to. " Rhodey replied, wondering what his best friends little sister was up to.

Everything went silent for awhile and the wind changed, drawing to a certain spot by the rocks, seconds later a large purple being exited the portal and the heroes straightened up.

"Cap, that's him, that's Thanos." Bruce breathed. 

They all ran towards Thanos, attacking one by one only to be knocked away with one swipe of his arm. The titan was making his way to the mind stone, which was in the lab with Loki, punching his way through everyone. 

They were all pinned by something eventually watching helplessly as Thanos continued walking, they all just about gave up when suddenly Thanos screamed in pain, dropping to his knees. 

His gauntlet arm was severed from his body with Teddy stood behind him, she swiftly sheathed her sword and grabbed the gauntlet.

The Avengers were each released from where they were pinned and stood staring at the shifter in awe, but that was soon over when Thanos stood up again and he looked pissed. Teddy didn't even seem phased by the mad titan's anger, as she just simply sent the gauntlet to Loki and breathed before charging at Thanos. 

Thanos also ran at Teddy, the loss of his arm throwing him slightly off balance but he didn't care, he charged at the shifter with a battle cry. Teddy sped up, when they met in the middle, Thanos went to punch Teddy in the head but she blocked him, grabbing his arm instead and they both suddenly disappeared.

The Avengers just stood there wide eyes in silence.

"Holy shit." Bucky whispered.

Loki suddenly appeared with the gauntlet in his arms, "Where is she? This wasn't part of the plan."

"What plan?" Steve asked curiously.

" Her sending the gauntlet to me, she was supposed to send it where no one would be able to get it. " 

"We don't know where they went, they just disappeared." Natasha answered with a rare looked of confusion etched in her face.

Just then, Thor landed in front of them studying his friends faces, "What is going on?"

"I have no idea." Rhodey answered, still confused at what just happened .

Thor looked around at his friends and froze when he saw his brother, his expression changing from pure joy to rage. He marched over to his brother who stepped back with his hands out in surrender.

"It wasn't my fault this time, my companion saved my life and brought me here." Thor paused, face softening.

" Who is this companion of yours? "

Loki pointed to the severed arm laying in the middle of the field, "She did that and disappeared ."

Thor looked shocked at the information, "Where are they now?"

Steve frowned, "We don't know."


	26. Chapter 26

On the planet Titan, Tony sat with his head in his hands, not believing that they just lost. Everyone was exhausted, just mere moments ago, Thanos kicked their asses and left to finish his mission to destroy half the universe. It was quiet, while everyone just sat there waiting for whatever the mad titan had planned. Wallowing in defeat.

After a few moments, Tony stood up and was about to speak when Dr. Strange cut him off with a look of confusion.

"Something's coming?" He frowned, feeling the powerful magic in the air and it felt angry.

Tony opened his mouth to retort but was promptly cut off by a figure falling from the sky. His eyes widened and he jumped out of the way before he could get crushed by it. When it landed, it created a deep crater in the planet, Tony hesitantly looked out from behind the rumble he jumped behind, and down in the crater only to choke on air when he saw the mad titan, missing an arm, fighting with someone.

"This was not one of the futures I saw, something's changed." Dr. Strange mumbled under his breath. Tony looked across at him in confusion.

"What?" 

Just then, Peter ran across to them with the guardians, "Mr. Stark, it's Teddy!"

Tony's eyes almost popped out of his head after hearing that, quickly standing to see the fight better, mouth dropping in shock when he saw his little sister kicking the crap out of the mad titan.

"Shit, he made her angry. I don't know whether to feel sorry for him or not."

Thanos grabbed Teddy by the leg she kicked him with and threw her off him. She crashed into an old ship wreck and emerged even more pissed than before, she ran at him while shifting into the hulk and gave him an uppercut sending him flying through the air, grabbing him by his leg and slamming in the ground. 

Teddy quickly shifted back to normal, pulling her sword from her back walking over to the massive crater in the ground. 

It was quiet as the shifter cautiously walked over, Tony watched, nervously wringing his hands. The guardians and Peter were in awe and Dr. Strange was confused as to why he didn't see this coming.

Suddenly, Thanos jumped out of the crater directly in front of Teddy a few metres away, and he was pissed, Teddy didn't even look slightly terrified for she was as equally pissed, if not more, as Thanos. They glared at each other for seconds before breaking out in a battle cry and running towards each other. Thanos went to grab her but she ducked last minute and slid on his left side, slicing his leg.

The titan stumbled, wincing at the pain in his leg, Teddy sliced his right leg and Thanos dropped to his knees. Just as the shifter was about to give the final blow, Thanos grabbed her arms and he stood up making her drop her sword. Her eyes widened slightly as he slammed her into the ground, she winced in pain.

"Son of a bitch." She coughed up, before she could move Thanos punched her further into the ground again and again. 

The titan raised his fist to punch her again when a spider web latched onto his hand pulling him back from Teddy. Thanos turned around and kicked the little spider away from him, opening his hand to break the web.

"You are going to die for that." He turned to find Teddy out of the crater with a bloody face and her hair open and matted to her face, caked with blood, and holding her sword. She snarled at him like a rabid animal and he moved to grab her again only for her to disappear.

Teddy teleported behind Thanos and sliced the back of his knees making him kneel, swinging her sword with as much strength as she could muster cutting promptly cutting his head off.

Teddy breathed heavily as she stood there for a moment, watching Thanos' body drop with a thud. Teddy sheathed her sword and stumbled forward dropping on her knees, hissing in pain. She spat the blood out of her mouth along with one of her teeth and wiped her bloody hair out of her face.

Footsteps came from behind her, Teddy grabbed the gun from her boot and swiftly turned to find Tony and a group of weird looking people with their hands up and eyes wide.

"Woah! It just me Teddy." 

She breathed in relief and out the gun back in her boot and stood up, smiling, her teeth were bloody and one of her front teeth were missing.

"Hey guys!"

...................................................

"Alright guys, I think that's the last of them." Cap breathed.

The Avengers in Wakanda had just finished with the last of the aliens. They were exhausted, bloody and bruised, with the exception of Loki who went back to the lab with the gauntlet.

"Anyone hear from Stark?" Bucky asked.

"Negative."

"I'm sure she's fine Buck."

Bucky huffed and continued his search for any live aliens that didn't get finished off.

"We're clear over here, I'm coming back to," Bucky stopped dead in his tracks when four people appeared scaring the shit out of him, when he recognized Teddy he choked. When she saw him her eyes lit up.

"Bucky!" She stepped forward to greet him only to pass out almost hitting the ground if not for Tony catching her.

"Guys I found Teddy, might wanna bring a medic. She brought guests."


	27. Chapter 27

Tony walked into his little sisters room in the medical wing of Shuri's lab to see how she was doing, apparently, Teddy broke her right leg in six places, dislocated her left shoulder, fractured four ribs and had mostly internal bleeding. Due to Teddy's increased healing, Shuri told him she should be all healed in about three or four days.

When he entered the room Teddy sat up in her bed, grinning from ear to ear. "Tony!!"

Tony smiled a little, "Hey Shifty, how are you?" Tony moved to sit next to her on the bed minding her casted leg.

" I'm fine, the pain killers make me feel a little woozy and Shuri said most of the bleeding was internal, which is where it's supposed to be. "

Tony snorted, "Did you just quote that stupid show you always watch?"

" Yes, Jake Peralta is a genius. " Teddy picked at her brothers fingers subconsciously. "How's everyone?"

" Everyone's fine, a bit bruised up but nothing serious. Actually, you are the only patient in the medical wing. "

"That's good." Teddy stopped picking at Tony's fingers and looked at him with a serious look on her face.

"What is it?" Tony frowned in worry.

Teddy looked him in the eye, "Can you get me a chocolate muffin?"

Tony rolled his eyes and sighed in frustration, Teddy started giggling.

"How high are you?"

Teddy frowned at the question, thinking it over for a second, " I'm 5'9. "

"Wow. I'll see what I can do about the muffin. In the mean time, you get some sleep Shifty. You had a long day."

Teddy yawned and laid back down, "Okay."

Tony watched his sister from the door for a minute before shutting the door and leaving.

...........................................................

"How is the little one doing?"

Loki had ambushed Tony on his way out of Teddy's room. The god didn't want to bother the shifter so he did the next best thing. Tony stopped walking and looked at him in suspicion.

"Why do you wanna know?", Tony crossed his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes at the trickster.

" It would be such a shame that the only mortal I can tolerate died. "

Tony rolled his eyes, "She's fine, just a bit hungry and high. You can go check on her if you like."

Tony continued his walk to where the other Avengers were and Loki followed.

"I do not wish to disturb the lady."

" Whatever. Come on, I'm not leaving you by yourself. "

They walked down the corridor and took a left, opening the door to find the heroes and the king sat around a table, except Rocket and Groot, who Thor took home and Vision, who hadn't woken up yet. Everyone had changed and cleaned up from the battle and were looking at both of them when they entered. Loki sat next to his brother and Tony sat next to Rhodey.

"Teddy's fine, she's sleeping for now. Shuri said she should be good as new in a few days." 

Some of them visibly relaxed and muttered a 'thank god'.

"Where the hell did she get those extra powers, last I checked she could just shift, not teleport. What the hell happened Tony?" Rhodey asked.

The billionaire cleared his throat, "Alright. A few months ago, Teddy said she got abducted by aliens, I thought she was crazy at first, cause it's Teddy, she was born crazy. But then crazy shit started happening, she started shifting into things she never could, her healing increased and she accidentally uprooted a tree. So naturally, we did some tests, well she did some tests and she found this."

Tony tapped in his phone and a holographic image of Teddy's blood test from a few months ago came up.

"This is before and after. Before when it was just shifting she could do, her mutation was normal, after, as you can see, it started growing. This was three months ago. This is the blood test I took a few minutes ago, "

Another image came up on the hologram. The team's eyes widened in surprise. Teddy's mutation had grown three times its size and was still growing.

"It looks like it slowed down a little, but it's still growing. I don't know what other powers she could acquire but it looks like teleporting is a new one. "

"I felt strong magic radiating off of her when she was fighting Thanos, it's not hers and it is very old. Maybe she's working for a powerful sorcerer. " Dr. Strange interjected.

"She did say something about her master bringing me back to life." Loki added.

Tony scoffed at the thought, "Teddy said she would never work for someone again after what happened last time. Unless it was like the Angel of Death or Death herself, that's what she told me."

" What happened last time? " Steve asked cautiously.

"Teddy used to work for the CIA, black ops, 'til one day they found out she was a mutant and they tried to kill her. They're still hunting her to this day, she's the most wanted on FBI, Interpol, CIA, you name it. They have a shoot to kill order in her. At first she wasn't gonna fight back like she does now but they killed her best friend and made her angry. She was a mercenary for a while till she met Peter and the rest is history."

" Damn. " Sam whispered under his breath and Bucky nodded in agreement next to him.

........................................................

Five days later, Teddy was all healed up and getting dressed in new clothes Shuri gave her and her combat boots. Her sword laid on the bed as she put on the navy blue jacket and combed through her hair before braiding it.

She sighed and looked into the mirror before picking up the sword and teleporting to Azrael.

She arrived directly in front the angel, finding the lady smiling at her.

"Theodore! I'm so glad you're okay, I saw everything. I see your teleporting finally came in. How do you feel?"

Azrael grabbed her face and inspected Teddy, looking to make sure she was actually alright. The shifter gently pulled out of the angels tight grip and smiled.

"I feel fine. The teleporting thing I didn't really realize because I was so in the moment and angry."

Azrael smiled, "Did you bring it?"

Teddy nodded and drew her sword and handed it to the angel. Azrael took it and brought it up to her lips and muttered a few words. Moments later, a shimmering grey ball floated out of the gem in the hilt of the sword and Azrael grabbed it, muttering a few words and it disappeared.

The angel gave Teddy her sword back and smiled, "You saved the universe, Theodore, thank you."

"You don't have to thank me, I was doing my job."

Azrael flicked Teddy on her cheek, "Nonsense, you didn't have to do a damn thing which is why you deserve this."

Teddy frowned in confusion, rubbing her cheek, "Deserve what?"

" The government won't be a problem for you anymore. "

Teddy's eyes widened, "Really?"

" Yes. So go home and rest, when I need you again the gem will light up. "

Teddy grinned excitedly, "Yes ma'am!" 

...........................................................

Teddy walked into the common room where everyone was munching on a chocolate muffin holding a paper bag with cookies.

Everyone stopped talking and stared at the shifter. When Teddy realized that everyone was looking she stopped chewing and let out a muffled, "What?"

Peter spoke up first, "Where the hell did you get that?"

"You watch your fucking language young man." Teddy hissed and swallowed the muffin.

Peter gasped at her, "What? You swear all the time."

" Because I'm not twelve. "

Tony interjected before it turned into an arguement, "Don't change the subject Teddy, he asked you a question."

"From a bakery." Teddy answered slowly, fidgeting with her fingers, avoiding everyone's stare.

" What bakery? Where is this bakery located? " Tony walked up to his sister with his arms folded.

"London, it's this cute little place they make the best muffins ever. Last time I went there was with my old team, you know before they tried to kill me, anyway I got these as a 'I almost died saving the world but I didn't ' kind of treat. Did you want one?" Teddy looked up at him with faux innocence in her eyes, slowly eating the rest of the muffin.

"Since when could you teleport?" Tony asked 

"I don't know the first time it happened, I was angry 'cause the purple dude hit that cute raccoon and the next thing I know, I'm kicking his ass on that ugly planet."

Tony looked at his sister in disbelief and was about to say something else before being interrupted by Dr. Strange.

"I felt powerful magic on you during that fight, what do you know about that?"

Teddy snapped her fingers, "Right. I was supposed to tell you but I forgot." Teddy breathed, "I got a job."

Tony choked on air at this revelation, "What!?"

"I'm serious. My boss is the angel of death, Azrael, she's the one I met in the alley that knocked me out. When I got there, I thought I was in trouble for killing a priest,"

Everyone, except Loki and Thor, eyes widened and Peter blurted out, "You killed a priest?!"

Teddy waved him off, "Details. Anyway, she was so impressed with my strength and my skills that she hired me to be a reaper and gave me this kick ass sword and cast a spell to help me unlock the rest of my powers faster to help with the Thanos thing. I don't get paid or anything but, I collect evil people's souls and bring them to her. Isn't that awesome."

"So, you're a grim reaper? " Tony asked slowly.

Teddy's face lit up, "Exactly! I got a cloak and everything, but I left that at the compound, I didn't want to get blood on it." 

"Of course you didn't." Tony sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

" So. Where's Vision? I haven't seen him since I woke up. "

Wanda sighed, "He hasn't woken up yet."

Teddy nodded, "Did you try putting him in rice?"

Everyone, except Loki, looked pissed at the joke. Loki was trying not to laugh but a few chuckles escaped and Thor slapped the back of his head.

"What?" 

"That's not funny, Theodore. "


	28. Chapter 28

Days later and Vision still had yet to awaken. The Avengers were starting to get antsy about it and frustrated because they could not figure out the problem. Especially Tony and the witch, who were being particularly snappy, Tony cause he couldn't fix the problem and the witch who was worried about her Robot boyfriend and Teddy was getting sick of it. The two of them scowling all the time and snapping at people who were just trying to help.

The team left Wakanda two days ago, with the gauntlet and the stones, separated of course, and were now back at the compound. Dr. Strange went back to the sanctum with the time stone, and Peter went back home to Aunt May. 

Tony and Steve still hadn't spoken to each other yet so the whole ride there was awkward and quiet. When they passed each other in the hallways of the compound or walked into the same room, it was awkward and Teddy, who was getting annoyed with them, knew exactly what to do. 

It was Loki's idea, the two of them had gotten much closer in the past few days, to the utter horror of Thor and Tony, and Teddy had been talking to him about the situation when he came up with a brilliant plan. The plan itself was quite childish but it was a plan nonetheless.

They two of them waited until everyone was sleeping before executing the plan. First, with the help of FRIDAY they snuck into Tony's room and carried Tony to Steve's room, Loki put a temporary spell on him to keep him asleep. The second part was a bit tricky, but luckily, they were both tricksters so it was easy, they snuck into Steve's room and quietly laid Tony on the bed next to Steve and left.

"FRIDAY, do not let them out of there until they made up." Teddy whispered.

"Yes, Mr. Stark."

"Thanks, baby girl."

Loki cast a spell on the door so that Steve would not be able to break it down and Teddy reinforced the vents and the windows, the only way to get out was through the door.

Next, the two of them headed down to the lab where Vision was. Teddy made sure that the witch was up in her room asleep before he came down here, she was still angry at him about the rice joke and every time she saw him, she looked like she wanted to do some witchy shit to him, so he's staying clear of her.

Loki tied his hair up in a bun and pushed the sleeves of his jumper up to his elbows, he helped Teddy push the android to Tony's workshop in a wheelchair, while Teddy carefully placed the mind stone in a metal case.

"I still can't believe no one thought of this. Tony's the genius and he didn't think of this." 

" Mortals are usually slow, you cannot blame them for something they cannot control. At least we thought of it and when it works, they won't be snapping at us any longer. "

Teddy nodded his head and pulled the chair into the workshop and picked up Vision putting him in the metal table. Loki looked across at the shifter who looked a little unsure of himself.

"Are you certain you know what you're doing?"

"I studied Tony's notes last night, I think I should be able to pull this off. If not both of us are gonna get fried, but not to worry I have this under control."

Teddy hooked Vision up and placed the mind stone in the slot on his forehead. The shifter started up the computers and while Loki finished hooking up the android. 

"Alright, it's ready. Step back." 

The workshop came to life, machines sparked and it seemed to be working until they cut out and caught on fire.

"Shit!" Teddy frantically looked around for a fire extinguisher, totally forgetting about FRIDAY, Loki rolled his and sent a pulse of magic and extinguished the fire. Teddy breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alright, so that didn't work."

"You don't say." Loki deadpanned. Teddy narrowed his eyes at the god.

"Don't get snappy with me mister. Alright, new plan." Teddy paced thinking for a minute while Loki just stared at him like he was crazy. Suddenly, Teddy stopped pacing and ran out of the workshop before Loki could even ask a question and came back with four long black devices.

"What are those?" Loki questioned curiously.

"Cattle prods. I lifted them off of some dude who used them for his dogs after I killed him. They generate enough electricity to kill a cow. I read in Tony's notes that Thor used lightning to bring Vision to life the first time." 

Teddy handed Loki two of them after setting them on the highest feature and walked over to Vision. They positioned the prods on different paces of Vision's head, including on the stone.

"Alright, press the button and hold it down on the count of three. One. Two. Three."

The electricity flowed through Vision for a few seconds before the stone reacted and blew them back. Teddy fell through a glass wall and Loki fell to the floor.

Teddy groaned and stood up, "Man that hurt. Loki? You okay?"

"Yes, Teddy, I'm peachy."

"I'm sensing a little hostility in your tone."

Loki glared at the shifter about to say something particularly snarky but a soft groan stopped him. Teddy's eyes widened and he ran to Vision. The android opened his eyes slowly and looked at the two of them.

"Theodore. I take it Thanos is no longer a problem."

Teddy looked down at him and grinned.

........................................................

It was six in the morning when they heard a very unmanly scream coming from Steve's room. Teddy and Loki both looked at each other and chuckled before going back to making pancakes.

After explaining everything to Vision, the android went to his beloved while the two of them went to make breakfast for everyone while listening to Beethoven softly playing in the background.

Moments later, Bucky walked into the kitchen in sweatpants and no shirt, rubbing his eyes.

"What are you two up to?" He sat on the kitchen counter next to Loki.

"Making pancakes. Want some?"

"Sure. But I meant with Steve and Tony." 

Teddy slid a plate across to Bucky, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Shouting erupted from Steve's room, it sounded like they were arguing. Loki looked of in that direction for a moment before looking back and Teddy smiling wickedly.

"How long do you think they're going to be in there? I say one hour."

"I give it two hours tops." Teddy grinned at him.

"You're both wrong, I say half an hour." Bucky interjected.

"You're on. If I win you both have to spend a night with me, if you win you get whatever you want."

"I want to go to the library." Loki smiled at the thought.

"I want you to teach me how to bake." Bucky suggested also smiling.

Teddy arched his eyebrow at the suggestions, "Seriously?" They both nodded. "Okay we have a deal."

Fifteen minutes later, the other Avengers, except for Vision and the witch, filtered into the kitchen and Teddy handed them a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee, tea for Bruce. 

The arguing stopped one hour and a half later and Teddy grinned, looking at his two companions with a mischievous look in his eyes. They both groaned at that look. By now the others had already left and it was just the three of them in the kitchen. 

Twenty minutes later both Steve and Tony came out into the kitchen looking exhausted.

"Hey guys, want some pancakes?" Tony glared at his little brother.

"I'm gonna kill you, I almost had a heart attack this morning."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, I was with Loki and Bucky all morning."

"Don't play innocent, I know it was you."

"What did I do?" Teddy smiled innocently at his brother.

"You know what you did." 

"Maybe you were sleep walking again."

Tony glared at him and walked to the kitchen island, picking up his pancakes and coffee, going down to his workshop.

Steve awkwardly stood there for a moment before going to pick up his plate and leaving.

The three of them burst out into a fit of giggles. Teddy cleared his throat and breathed.

"So. Tonight, we're going out, be ready by seven."


	29. Chapter 29

Teddy walked down the stairs in a black oversized jumper and skinny jeans with his usual combat boots and a gun strapped to his leg. It was seven o'clock and he was going down to the garage where he was meeting Bucky and Loki.

He whistled and twirled his car keys around his finger. Turning the corner, he was met by the sight of Loki and Bucky talking to each other, sporting huge smiles on their faces. Teddy smiled and walked over.

"Gentlemen, are you ready to break the law with me?" Bucky's eyes widened at this question while Loki looked mildly curious.

"You said nothing about breaking laws. If I'm going with you we aren't doing anything illegal." Teddy groaned and pouted, stomping his feet.

"Why not?" He whined. Bucky had a stern look on his face and pointed at him.

"Steve would kill me if I did something stupid and if you forgot I'm still kind of a fugitive." 

"What Steve doesn't know isn't gonna kill him, and besides we aren't doing anything that bad, just a little breaking and entering is all."

"No." Bucky crossed his arms with a glare. Teddy huffed and threw his head back.

"Fine. We'll do boring mundane shit then." The shifter walked over to his old rusty car and opened the door.

Loki looked at it disgust, "If I may, why are we riding in this hideous contraption?"

"It's a disguise Loki, no one pays attention to poor people. It's the sad truth, now get in, I promise it's better on the inside."

Loki shrugged and got into the passenger seat while Bucky rode in the backseat, what he deserves for being a buzz kill really, Teddy hopped into the drivers seat and started the car.

"Where are we going then?" Loki asked.

"Well, since Bucky wants to be a Grandma, we'll go to a bar then the library then we'll stop at the gas station for some junk good or something."

"Hey, I'm not a Grandma. I'm just playing safe."

Teddy rolled his eyes, "Whatever, Grandma."

..............................................................

Teddy pulled the car over and sighed.

"Okay, we're here. Bucky, give me your left arm."

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, "Why?"

"Roll up the sleeve and stop asking questions, Grandma." Teddy climbed into the backseat next to Bucky and pulled a folded piece of cloth from his back pocket. Bucky quickly rolled up the sleeve, silently wondering what his friend was doing. 

The shifter attached the cloth to the arm, from the shoulder to the fingers. Bucky was about to question him again when the cloth molded into the metal and morphed into something resembling skin.

Bucky's eyes widened in wonder, "What?" He whispered.

"It's for the disguise and I know you hate looking at it so I made something to kill two birds with one stone. It's synthetic skin to cover it whenever you want, also, it's unbreakable. Now all you have to do is get rid of that ridiculous hair and you would be unrecognizable." 

Bucky's hands to his hair making a face of horror, "I'm never cutting my hair, don't you ever mention that again."

Teddy looked over at Loki, "What about you? Want to get rid of that hair?"

Loki narrowed his eyes at Teddy, " If you touch my hair, I will stab you. "

Teddy rolled his eyes at their dramatics and got out of the car with the two following. "I'm just here to pick up a few things and then we're leaving." 

"What is this place exactly?" Loki asked curiously .

"Sister Margaret's Home for Wayward Girls, this is the bar where most of the mercenaries hang out, also where they get clients. I come here sometimes when I feel murderous or I just wanna hang out with my princess." 

"Your princess?" Bucky asked.

"You'll love him."

The shifter pushed the door open and walked in with the two following. Teddy walked up to the bar and sat next to a bald, incredibly scarred man.

"Hey princess, I see you're still gorgeous as ever." The guy turned and beamed at Teddy.

"Teddy, haven't seen you for a while, where have you been? Off beating your meat to clown porn again?" Teddy grinned and wrapped an arm around the guy.

"Wade, you know me so well, it's actually furry porn, God I love that shit." Teddy sat on the bar stool and looked back at Loki and Bucky who were already sitting. "These are my friends Loki and Bucky, this is my princess Wade." 

Wade stared at the shifter, "Why can't you ever make normal friends?"

"Dude, normal would make me shoot myself in the fucking face. I prefer crazy, it's easier to deal with. Anyway, where the fuck is Weasel? He has stuff for me." Teddy knocked on the bar impatiently.

" I'm right here Teddy, don't get your panties in a twist. " Weasel walked out of the back room holding a small paper bag. "Here you go, it's quality stuff, you could probably knock out an elephant with that shit." Teddy dug into his right pocket and pulled out six hundred dollars and handed it over to Weasel, swiftly picking up a bottle of tequila from behind the bar.

"It's a pleasure doing business with you Weasel." The shifter grabbed Wade's head and planted a kiss at the top, "Bye, Wade." Loki and Bucky both got up to follow Teddy out.

They were almost at the door when someone yelled, "Where's my kiss Teddy?" He turned around and smiled.

"Billy! How could I forget you? Here's your kiss." He walked up to Billy, smiling and head butt him in the nose. Billy grabbed his bleeding nose and Teddy punched him in the face twice knocking him out. A crowd had gathered in anticipation and watched as Teddy felt around Billy's fat neck for a pulse, he sighed in disappointment, "Sorry guys." The mercs groaned in unison and walked away.

The shifter stood up and walked over to Bucky and Loki, "Let's go."

"What was that about?" Bucky asked. Teddy shrugged.

"Inside joke." Teddy

.......................................................

The three of them went back to the compound around two in the morning with Loki holding a stack of stolen library books with a wide smile on his face, Bucky sulking behind him holding a box of donuts and Teddy not far behind him carrying two large bags of booze and snacks.

"I think tonight went pretty well."

"I did, until we broke in the library." Bucky responded.

"Whatever, Grandma. Let's go watch TV or something. I don't think I can sleep now and I know you two don't want to." 

They didn't even argue with him, their nightmares have gotten worse over time. They both followed Teddy to his room.

..............................................................

"Teddy, I need your," Tony cut himself off, staring at his brother's bed in shock.

Loki, Bucky and Teddy were seeping, together. Teddy was spooning Loki while Bucky's arm was draped across Loki's waist. The TV was still playing cartoons and the floor was littered with snack wrappers, bullets and a couple of knives. Tony pulled out his phone and took several pictures before leaving quietly shutting the door.


	30. Chapter 30

Teddy sat on the roof of the compound, her hair was tied up in a messy bun and she was wearing shades with a red tank top and black basketball shorts, smoking the pot Weasel had given her the night before, listening to opera through her headphones. She was just relaxing in her lounge chair, bopping her head along with the music.

O Fortuna had just begun when her head phones were abruptly ripped from her ears and she turned around to face an angry Steve Rogers. Teddy sighed and paused the music on her phone looking up at him. She puffed smoke out of her mouth.

"What do you want Mr. America?" She asked him, annoyed that he interrupted her peace.

Steve crossed his bulky arms across his chest with a scowl on his face, "Where's Bucky?"

"Sleeping, in my room, with the God of Mischief." Teddy put the blunt between her lips and breathed in and blew the smoke through her nose. Steve scrunched his nose.

"Is that pot?"

"Yes, sir. What? You want some? Cause I would love to share with you."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"So are you, but you're still here aren't you?" Teddy took another hit of her joint and blew the smoke in the air, looking Steve right in the eye.

"You have no room to talk about me, you're worse than me. If I were to call the cops now they would pick you up and not even look at me."

Teddy raised her eyebrows and threw her head back in laughter, "No they wouldn't. The world knows me as Lieutenant Theodore Stark, sister of Tony Stark, decorated soldier, honourable discharge, due to severe injuries after a bomb went off. They would salute me and arrest you and your team, Mr. America." 

"What are you talking about? Tony told us about CIA and all the agents you killed. You're a murderer." Steve snarled at the shifter.

Teddy smirk and walked to the edge of the roof inhaled more smoke, "I might be, but I have friends in high places, literally, she got rid of the CIA shit for me, to them I've never even worked there. And I've never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, there's not one of them I regret. Rapists, child molesters, child murderers, bigots, abusers, they all deserved what I did to them. They were the worst of the worst and if I had to I would do it again, so that, what happened to me would never happen to another child again. If I have to kill millions then so be it. I don't care what you think about me Cap, or anyone else, I stopped caring about that a long time ago."

Teddy pushed past Steve and walked to the door, she was about to open it when Steve's voice rang through the air, "How do you know Bucky anyway? He seemed very worried about you back in Wakanda."

"I helped him stay away from you for two years until he got his head in order but then everything went to shit." The shifter walked through the door and shut it, leaving Steve on the roof by himself.

.............................................................

"I don't think Cap likes me very much." 

Teddy was in her brother's workshop, laying on the couch. She had put the blunt out before coming down here. Tony was working on his car with soft music playing in the background.

"You are an acquired taste to most people. You attract crazy because they understand, people like Cap would never understand you." Tony muttered from beneath the car.

"Are you saying you're crazy?"

"I'm your brother, I've gotten used to your craziness. And despite what happened to you as a child and an adult, I think you could be worse, much worse." 

A smile broke out on Teddy's face, "Thank you."

"So, how was your little sleep over with your murder buddies."

"It was lovely. We went out, bought some weed, stole some books and came back here to watch TV but they fell asleep in the middle of it and are still asleep. They haven't slept in days because of nightmares, so I relaxed them and put them to sleep after giving them my magic tea and brownies."

Tony snorted and rolled out from under the car, "You fed them pot brownies and Tequila?"

Teddy rolled her eyes, "They're sleeping aren't they."

............................................................

When Bucky woke up, he found himself in a room that was not his, he didn't panic but was slightly confused as to why the ceiling was painted checkered purple and pink. He felt a weight on his chest and found Loki sleeping, with his head on Bucky's chest and his hair spilling over his face covering it.

Bucky held him there looking across at the clock in the night table. 11:45am. Meaning they slept nine hours. Bucky was shocked since this was the longest sleep he had gotten since the forties.

A small groan snapped him out of his thoughts and he looked down at the god on his chest, who was blinking and moved his hair out of his face. Loki looked up at him with confused green eyes before laying back on the soldier's chest.

"Mornin'," 

The door opened and Teddy walked in carrying two trays of food. She smiled at the two of them as they slowly sat up.

"Finally, you're awake. I made you breakfast, it's waffles and whipped cream with strawberries and a cup of coffee." She handed them a tray, "Breakfast for lunch. You two slept for nine hours, I had to endure a lecture from a very judgemental Steve, not to worry, I didn't kill him."

"Thank you?"


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is graphic as fuck. Just a warning.

Teddy stood in the common room, suited up in black cargo pants, with her black, bullet proof jacket and her combat boots. Her hair was braided and folded under a hat and holsters held four guns, twelve daggers and, of course, her sword on her back.

The shifter was on her Stark pad, going through the schematics of a warehouse, studying it, marking exits and entrances, rooms and hiding spots.

That's how Tony and Natasha found her, they were having a little chat, when they walked in the common room and found Teddy dressed to kill, literally. Tony cleared his throat and caught his sister's attention. Teddy's head snapped towards Tony and she smiled slightly before going back to work.

"What's going on Teddy?"

"Vacation's over. Azrael gave me two new jobs. Human traffickers and a genocidal maniac, I'm just trying to memorize the exits so I can trap the bastards." Teddy tapped away on the pad.

"Where are you going?" Tony asked, Natasha was just staring at the shifter trying to figure her out. Teddy had been an anomaly since they met a couple months ago and Nat wanted to know more about her. She didn't like not knowing.

"New Jersey and Ohio. I should be back before midnight, don't worry about me." Teddy put the Stark pad on the couch and put on a black back pack.

"Do you need back up?" 

"I'm dealing with measly humans not gods, I think I could take this one by myself. Besides it's not gonna be that many, maybe fifty dudes, one hundred max." Teddy checked her guns to make sure they were loaded and she hand everything. She looked up at her brother and saw the hesitant look on his face.

"But-," Tony was cut of by Teddy.

"Dude, I'm gonna be fine, no need to worry about me." Tony still looked worried though and she sighed heavily, throwing her head back. "If I need help I'll call you. How does that sound?"

"But what if you're dead? You can't call me if you're dead." 

"Would it help if I carried someone with me?"

"Yes."

"But nobody likes me besides you, Loki and Bucky, and the two of them are busy and so are you."

"I'll go with you." Natasha stated calmly. Teddy froze and her eyes lit up.

"Really?" 

Natasha shrugged, "Give me ten minutes, then we can go."

With that the assassin turned to get ready and Teddy squealed like a schoolgirl. Tony rolled his eyes at his little sister.

...........................................................

The two of them were currently in New Jersey, since they had already finished up in Ohio. That kill was simple, the man was home alone planning something maniacal. Teddy broke into his house, killed him and blew up the place to get rid of the plans. New Jersey was going to be more difficult though, they had to take on a bunch of idiots with guns.

Teddy, had already sealed the exits and entered through a window with Widow following. The two looked around the room they entered which was filled with boxes and shelves. The shifter opened a box curiously and grinned when she saw explosives, quickly taking off her back pack and stuffing some in. 

The shifter zipped up the back pack and put it on, quietly walking to the door. 

Natasha watched her as she put her ear to the door before swinging it open. Teddy pulled out the gun strapped to be left thigh and turned off the safety, she looked both ways before stepping out in the hallway and gesturing for Widow to follow her.

When they got to the end of the hallway, Teddy paused, hearing two heartbeats nearby, she looked around the corner and saw two guys in jeans and leather jackets, playing cards and smoking, approximately ten feet away from them, guarding a door. Teddy thought for a minute, since she didn't want to alert anyone yet, she had to be silent. 

Quickly, she placed the gun back into its holster and pulled out a large hunting knife and a dagger. She breathed before taking off running towards the men, throwing the dagger at the one facing her, hitting him in the head when she reached them, the second man got up quickly, going to pull his gun out but Teddy grabbed him by the neck and stabbed him in the chest twice and gently setting him down. Widow opened the door and went in with Teddy following. 

The shifter frowned at the sight. There were kids about ten of them, all of them looked under ten, they were all covered in dirt and dressed in ratty old clothes. They looked terrified, huddled up in a corner. Teddy clenched her fists before kneeling down and putting on a fake smile.

"Hey guys, I'm Teddy and this is my friend Widow. We're gonna get you out of here." 

A small girl no older than five stepped forward, "Like a Teddy Bear?" She asked in a small voice.

The shifter smiled gently, "Exactly like a Teddy Bear. We aren't gonna hurt you, okay. My friend Widow here is gonna stay with you while I go out and get rid of the bad men so you can get out safely, okay?" Teddy looked back at Widow who nodded in confirmation and turned back to the kids. They nodded.

"Okay. I'll be back soon." 

Teddy stepped back outside and collected her dagger from the man's head and angrily walked off, she put away the knife and pulled two guns from the thigh holsters.

She turned paused for a moment, listening out for more people and turned left were everyone was. They were in the open area in the warehouse, men at the entrance with rifles dressed casually and men in the upper level pacing and three guarding a door. Teddy counted at least twenty but she knew they were many more. She knew that when she shot this round everyone in the warehouse would be aware of her presence and run towards the area, which is exactly what she wanted.

Teddy calculated everything in her head and breathed, she moved from behind the wall and shot two of the men at the entrance in the head, after that everyone scrambled into position. The ones upstairs except the three guarding the door, ran down to help the ones downstairs, shooting at Teddy. She hid behind a crate pulling a grenade out of her back pack and looked over to the men, seeing them all relatively close to each other, she rolled the grenade towards them.

"Shit!" One of the men yelled before it blew up, killing eight of them instantly, she teleported behind five men shooting three of them in the head and two in the heart. 

Men started filtering in yelling in panic and shooting at Teddy, she shot sixteen guys before running out of ammo. 

"Fuck!" The shifter frantically hid behind a crate and put away the guns, grabbing the two under her arms. Teddy waited until they were out of ammo before stepping out and shooting everyone, she threw a grenade at the hallway where more men were filing out. She shot everyone that moved holding nothing back, eventually, her guns ran out of bullets and she dropped them, quickly grabbing her sword. She teleported behind four of they guys shooting at her and stabbed two in the chest, one in the neck and cut the other in half.

Teddy continued on her rampage cutting down everyone until she stood over all the bodies, covered in blood and breathing heavily. She looked around and saw the door left unguarded, the guards were probably in the pile at her feet. The shifter quietly walked up the stairs toward the door, she could hear two heartbeats in the room, both of them terrified, and a whimper from a child.

Teddy kicked down the door, inside the room was quiet, if she didn't have enhanced hearing she would have thought it was empty. It was also quite large, there was a desk and chairs like an office space, and another door next to the desk. 

The shifter walked up to the door and listened again, it sounded like the child was crying in pain. Teddy kicked down the door, only to be met by gun shots, most of them missed but one but her in the leg. She merely winced and proceeded to cut the man's hand off. 

He cried out and dropped, and Teddy took that moment to examine the situation. They were in a bathroom, a little girl was in the bathtub huddled in the corner crying her eyes out, she looked about seven years old and she was bleeding. Teddy looked down to the man crying below her cradling his arm to his chest, his pants had been unbuttoned and unzipped, halfway down his legs.

Rage filled her as she looked at the man and stomped on his crotch, he cried out in pain and tried to crawl away from Teddy but she grabbed him by his hair and dragged him outside so the little girl wouldn't see. The man grabbed at Teddy's arm pleading for his life, crying his eyes out.

When out of the room, Teddy threw the man on the ground roughly and spat on him.

"Fucking disgusting." She's kicked him in the face and broke his nose. He grabbed his nose, pleading.

"Please don't kill me. I can get you money, whatever you want. Please!"

Teddy scoffed at him, "I don't want your filthy fucking money!" She kicked him again and he flipped onto his stomach. "You like raping little girls, huh, you like that. I'm gonna show you what it feels like you piece of shit." 

Teddy yanked the man's pants down to his knees and pulled out one of her daggers, shoving it up his ass, roughly. The man cried out in pain.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, thinking you could take what you want, doing that to a little girl!" Teddy kicked the dagger farther up his ass and he cried out in pain.

"Please, I won't do it again just please don't kill me." He was weeping, snot and blood coming from his nose. Teddy grabbed him roughly by the hair pulling him to his knees.

"You're damn right." She took her sword and glided it across his neck cutting him so deep she almost decapitated him. Blood splattered across Teddy's face and the man dropped to the ground, bleeding profusely from his neck.

Teddy breathed heavily, trying to calm down slightly so she wouldn't scare the little girl and walked back into the bathroom. The little girl was still in the corner, trembling and the shifter almost cried but shook it off quickly.

"Hi, I'm Teddy." She one else by the bathtub. The little girl looked up with big green eyes, her cheeks were red and wet.

"Like a Teddy Bear." She sounded like she was crying for hours. Teddy smiled, a tear running down her face, she quickly wiped it away.

"Exactly like a Teddy Bear. Come on let's get you out of here. Can you walk?"

The girl shook her head, "It hurts."

Teddy took the bag off her back and dug through it for her black pullover and she handed it to the girl.

"Here, put this on. What's your name, pumpkin?"

"Mary." Mary took the pull over and put on and looked up at Teddy. The shifter knelt down and let Mary wrap her arms around her neck and lifted her out of the bathtub.

"That's a pretty name. I want you to close your eyes for me Mary, it's not pretty out here." She nodded and closed her eyes and Teddy carried her out back to Widow.

............................................

Later that night, after Teddy alerted the authorities and made sure Mary got to the hospital, Teddy lined the warehouse with explosives and blew it up, along with all of the bodies. She and Widow teleported back to the compound in the common room where everyone was hanging out, they all jumped at the new comers and gasped when the saw Teddy.

The shifter was still covered in blood and had a blank expression on her face. She nodded to everyone and walked away, quietly.

Everyone was in a state of shock, even though most of them didn't know her that well they knew she always had a smile on her face while she said something incredibly offensive, and they immediately knew something was off with Teddy. They all looks toward Widow for an answer.

"I don't know what happened, she left me to guard the kids and came back an hour later covered in blood with a little girl." 

"Kids?" Steve asked in confusion.

"Human traffickers were selling kids." 

Tony got up and walked to his sister's room, her back pack and been carelessly flung onto her bed and her hat was on the floor. Teddy was in the shower, fully clothed sitting on the floor and letting the water run down her face, her knees were against her chest and she was crying.

"What the fuck is wrong with people?"

Tony sat next to his sister and she climbed into his lap with her head buried in his neck, crying even harder. She clung to him like he was going to disappear if she let go and he held her.

"I don't know kid."


	32. Chapter 32

Four days after the warehouse and no one saw Teddy once. She was in her room for four days, only coming out at night when she knew everyone was either sleeping or working late. Until one day, she came out dressed in black skinny jeans and an oversized grey pullover with her usual combat boots. The sleeves of the pullover covered her hands and her hair was up in a messy bun.

Everyone was in the common room talking when she came out, Teddy simply acknowledged them and pulled a gun from under the coffee table, tucking it in the back of her pants.

"I'm going out." She turned and walked towards the front door and Tony called out.

"Where?" Teddy turned around and shrugged her shoulders .

"It's Saturday." 

Everyone watched her leave quickly, lighting a cigarette and grabbing her car keys.

Everyone turned to Tony and Steve asked, "What does that mean?"

Tony just sighed and walked off, "Nothing. I'll be in my lab."

...............................................

Teddy parked next to an alley and got out of her car, walking into it. She stood with her back against the wall waiting for her target to pass, which he eventually did. The shifter pulled him by the arm and yanked him into the alley, surprising him that he had been caught.

"You're shit at tailing people Cap. Why are you following me?"

Steve got up off the ground, "I just wanted to see what you were up to."

"You mean you wanted to make sure I don't kill any homeless people?"

Steve's eyes widened slightly and he shook his head, "No, that's not true. It's just, everyone's worried about you since you haven't said anything or been seen since Tuesday."

Teddy put out her cigarette and blew the smoke through her nose, grabbing Steve's hand, "Walk with me Cap."

They walked into a diner called Bailey's and sat at a booth in the far corner. Steve sat and looked around. The diner was 50's style and brightly coloured, not at all any kind of place you would find Teddy and he found it very odd.

"What are we doing here?"

Teddy picked up a menu and scanned through it, "Eating obviously, they have the best pancakes."

As Steve was about to say something the waitress walked over with a smile on her face. She looked familiar but Steve couldn't place where he saw her from.

"Hi Teddy, I'll take it you'll have your usual."

Teddy smiled at her, "Yes Rosie, and my friend here would have some of your delicious Apple pie."

Rosie wrote everything down, "I'll be right back."

Steve was staring at the waitress as she walked away and Teddy slapped the back of his head, "That's my daughter, stop staring."

Steve looked back at Teddy, his mouth agape, "What?"

"My pride and joy. Every Saturday, no matter what, I come here and we talk. She's studying law at NYU, best in her class. She's graduating this year as the valedictorian."

Steve stared at the shifter to see if she was joking but she had a fond look on her face saying she wasn't.

"You don't look old enough to have a daughter in college."

"Thank you. I'm 34 and she's 21. You do the math." 

Cap sat there think for a bit before slowly answering, "You had her when you were 13." 

"Yes, I had just started high school, I was excited to learn new shit and I was with my best friend. Everything was awesome, until one day, I go to my English teacher for some help concerning my homework, it was after school and almost everyone had gone home. I thought everything was going fine, 'til it was time to leave. He bent me over his desk and had his way with me. That was the worst day of my life, he was also my first kill, I burnt him alive a few weeks after he did that to me. A couple weeks later, I started feeling sick, so I get Tony to take me to the doctor and he tells me I'm pregnant and since I'm so young it could kill me, and I should consider an abortion. I punched him right in the face. I have one rule, don't hurt kids."

Steve was slowly absorbing this information, staring at Teddy with sad eyes before grabbing her hand, "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Teddy shrugged, "What's done is done, nothing to be sorry about. Besides Rosie is the best thing that ever happened to me. I was sad I couldn't keep her, but I agreed, I was so traumatized by what happened and I was far to young to raise a kid and Tony barely had any time for me so I gave her to a family, they were trying to have a baby for years and nothing. They gave her everything they could, everything I couldn't give her."

"Does she know about you?" 

Teddy scoffed, "God no. She has enough shit to worry about, I'm fine with her thinking we're just friends. I don't want to confuse her. I just look out for her, you know."

Just then, Rosie came back with their tray of food, "Okay, blueberry pancakes and a chocolate shake for Teddy and Apple pie for Teddy's friend, enjoy."

...............................................

When they finished eating, Teddy paid for the meal and left Rosie a two hundred dollar tip.

"Bye Rosie."

"Bye Teddy. "

The two of them left the diner and walked back to Teddy's car.

"Is that why you've been so quiet these past few days?" Steve asked.

"Yes. I have been cursed with an eidetic memory, seeing what happened to that little girl brought those memories to the surface. I can remember the colour of the classroom, the dress I was wearing, the blood running down my leg. I just needed a few days to get back into my headspace." 

"Sounds like you might need to talk to somebody."

"I've talked to enough people, they don't help at all. Besides, murder is very helpful, it relieves stress and calms the mind."

They stopped at Teddy's car, "Do you need a ride back to the compound?" 

Steve shook his head, "I took my motorcycle." Teddy nodded and got in the car.

"Well, see ya."

............................................

"I'm back and nobody got murdered."

Was the first thing the shifter said when she entered her brother's workshop. Tony looked up at her.

"How did it go?"

"It was lovely, she is still the most precious thing ever. Seeing her again makes me glad I put her up for adoption, I would have screwed her up." 

"Probably. Are you ever gonna tell her?" Tony asked getting back to whatever he was working on.

"No. She doesn't need me, she's doing just fine. Besides, I don't deserve her." Teddy stretched out in the couch and turned on cartoons.

Tony looked at his sister sadly, "That's bullshit and you know it."

"Whatever."


	33. Chapter 33

Over the past few weeks, Teddy noticed he become the resident cuddler for wayward super heroes, for example, earlier that morning, Bucky had his head on Teddy's chest while the shifter was humming an old tune, running his hand through the ex-assassin's hair. He went to Teddy saying he had a nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep and Teddy just sighed and let him sleep there.

Earlier that week, Loki walked into Teddy's room and made him wrap his arms around him, while the God lay his head on Teddy's shoulder and went to sleep. 

The two of them had been doing it for weeks but Teddy hadn't really thought about it until now. Teddy was in the common area doing the usual, cartoons and cereal, when Steve, of all people, walked in and lay down next to him on the couch, tucking his head in the shifter's lap. 

After the diner, Steve stopped giving Teddy the eyebrows of disappointment whenever he saw him and the two actually started talking more. About one week ago, Steve had been feeling a little under the weather but refused to rest, until Teddy made him soup with sleeping pills in it and tucked him in his bed when he fell asleep. Of course Steve was a little peeved that the shifter did that but since he knew Teddy didn't give a shit, he brushed it off.

When Steve finally dozed off, the shifter picked him up bridal style and walked to his room, resting him on the bed.

Teddy walked down to Tony's workshop, finding Tony under a car.

"Am I a cuddly looking person?" Tony rolled from underneath the car with a frown on his face.

"What?" The shifter rolled his eyes.

"Do I look cuddly?"

Tony got up from the ground and wiped his oily hands off into dirty rag. "Not really. Where's this coming from?"

"People keep coming to me for cuddles so I had to make sure it wasn't his I looked, can't have people thinking that when I'm about to kill them." Tony snorted.

"Who keeps going to cuddle you?" 

"Cap, Loki and Bucky. Do you think it has to do with how I smell?"

"Wait, you're cuddling with Cap?" Tony asked incredulously.

"Yes, I don't know how it started, they just keep coming to me when they have trouble sleeping." 

"You are very comfortable to be around. Especially in your room, nothing about you or it is normal and normal freaks out most of the people living here. Waking up to a pink and purple ceiling and looking to the floor to find bullets scattered everywhere and knives laying around is comforting to some people. Also, you smell like honey and vanilla, it could be part of the reason. Or, the fact that you sort of baby everyone you meet." 

Teddy frowned, "I don't baby anyone." Tony scoffed at that.

"Last week, Cap didn't feel good and you made him soup. Last month, you gave Loki a pep talk about self acceptance. You help Peter with his homework everyday even though you know he doesn't need it. Everyday you come down here to make sure I ate something and you make Bucky warm milk and vodka when he can't sleep and then sing him old Russian lullabies to help him sleep."

Teddy crossed his arms across his chest, "Well, excuse me for being a decent human being." 

"You make Thor his favorite breakfast every morning and tell Sam too much sugar is bad for you when he over syrups his pancakes." 

"You're right, I am babying them. Maybe I have too much free time, I should get another job. Azrael only calls a couple times a week and I'm too efficient, the jobs get done way too quickly."

Tony walked forward and put his hands on his brother's shoulders, "I don't think that would change anything. You are a parent, who didn't get to do any parenting and when you met them, your caring nature went into overload and now, you're the mother of the Avengers, except me of course, that would be weird. Congratulations."

Teddy's frown deepened in thought, he didn't even realize what he had been doing, "Oh, Wow. Holy shit!" His eyes widened and he quickly teleported out of the workshop . Tony blinked and looked around, seeing his brother disappear so abruptly.

"Teddy?"

.......................................................

Teddy was sitting at the bar with a glass of whiskey talking to Weasel. "I can't believe it, I am the thing I hate most in this world, a mother hen." His lips curled in disgust as if the word was acid in his mouth, he downed the entire glass of whiskey and motioned for Weasel to refill it.

"I don't see the problem Teddy, what's wrong with being a mother hen?" 

"I don't know, I supposed to be the cool aunt. The one that gives you vodka when you're eight and smokes stolen pot with you, not the boring mother." Teddy rest his head on the bar in defeat and Weasel stared at him for a moment before sighing.

"You're not boring." Teddy looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

"I'm not?"

"Of course not, if it wasn't for you Wade would still be moping around here calling himself ugly, even though he is. If you hadn't said he was the prettiest princess ever, he would be in here smelling like he dived dick first in the sewers, crying like a little bitch. Also, I never would've gotten rid of Pervy Chad if you hadn't scared the shit out of him."

"Really?" Teddy asked in a small voice. Weasel mentally rolled his eyes.

"Hell yeah, so, stop crying like a dickless idiot. You're a cool mom."

Teddy sat up straight, grinning, "You're right, I am a cool mom." The shifter jumped down from the bar stool and paid for the drinks. "Thanks Weasel."

He ran for the door and opened it almost bumping into Wade, he kissed him on the cheek and left, "Bye, princess." 

"The fuck?" 

........................................................

Teddy walked through New York city, smoking a cigarette, people watching. 

He decided he wasn't gonna go back to the compound just yet, so he just started walking around aimlessly. He walked for some time before eventually deciding to go home. Just as he was about to teleport, as always, he heard a cry coming from a nearby alley. Teddy groaned and went to check it out, only to be met by the saddest sight ever. A kitten was nudging its mother, who was lying on the dirty ground obviously dead.

Teddy slowly walked up to it, trying not to scare it away and picked it up. The kitten looked a few weeks old, it could fit into the palm of his hand and it was black with a brown spot on its nose. Teddy scratched behind its ears.

"Sorry little one, mommy's gone now." 

The shifter teleported back to the compound, in the middle of the kitchen, scaring the shit out of Sam, who was eating a bag of gummy bears.

"Oh my god, don't do that man." 

"You must hate your teeth that you constantly kill them with all that sugar." 

Sam merely rolled his eyes, this was the third time Teddy was giving him this speech, "I get it, no sugar."

Teddy filled a bowl with milk and warmed it up, pulling the kitten from his jacket and setting on the kitchen island.

"Where the hell did you get that?" 

"It was stranded, in need of a home and I couldn't bare to leave it behind. Look at its little paws, cutest thing ever."

Sam sighed and punched his nose, "Oh my god."


	34. Chapter 34

Teddy was currently on a forty story building fighting, killing, four henchmen. After being notified of a sex trafficker, the shifter immediately set out on the mission. It took her two hours, but she found the base of operations and the boss, who was also a drug lord. She had already killed everyone involved including the boss, it was just these four, well two.

Teddy stabbed one and shot the other one in the head and watched both of them drop. She huffed and stood up straight, breathing heavily for a moment, then stepping back.

At that moment, Teddy was brutally reminded that she was at the edge of the roof as she fell off.

"Oh FUCK!!" The shifter was frantically grabbing at thin air for something to hold onto as she fell from the building.

After what felt like hours, hours of screaming and panicking, the shifter crashed through the sidewalk, into the sewers in a heap of rubble. at

She pushed the debris off of her and tried to stand up, immediately regretting everything and sat back on the rubble. She noticed a large gash on her left leg stitching itself up.

Slowly getting up, Teddy held onto the wall and limped out of the sewers grumbling to herself. "Fucking buildings, who the fuck made them so tall. Stupid fucking bitches."

..........................................

Teddy walked into the diner, more like limped into the diner, and immediately Rosie appeared in front of her with a worried look on her face. "Teddy? What the hell happened to you? You look like shit." 

The shifter rolled her eyes and groaned, "I fell." She promptly made her way to her usual seat with Rosie following her.

"You fell? You have blood all over your face and rubble in your hair and you're limping. And you smell like shit." Rosie scrunched up her nose and swiped some rubble out of Teddy's hair.

"Fine! I fell of a roof and ended up in the sewers and I fucked up my leg." The shifter sat down in the booth and Rosie sat opposite her.

"Why didn't you just teleport when you fell?" 

Teddy's eyes widened and she groaned and slapped herself, "I totally forgot about that, I'm so fucking stupid sometimes."

Rosie raised her eyebrows, "Sometimes?" Teddy scoffed and shoved her arm lightly. Rosie laughed, "It's true, for someone who's IQ is 157, you can be a dumbass sometimes."

"Whatever." Teddy rolled her eyes and looked up at Rosie, "Can I get like, four blueberry cheesecakes?"

"That'll go straight to your hips." 

Teddy scoffed, "I don't give a shit about that, bring me my cheesecake. Please." 

"Sure." Rosie got up to get the shifter's order. Teddy sighed and removed the sword from her back, resting it in the booth sinking into the seat. 

Rosie came back a few moments later with the cake and sat back in her original spot. Teddy started eating and Rosie started talking, like they usually do. She talked about everything from her parents to school. She was complaining about her professor and his obsession with torturing his students with loads of homework, while Teddy just nodded. The next topic they were touching was Rosie's love life which made Teddy drop her fork in the plate.

"What?"

"I'm going on a date next week Friday with this guy I met in the coffee shop across campus, he's so nice and sweet and smart." Rosie was getting doe eyed and she looked excited.

Teddy scoffed, "In my experience 'nice, sweet, smart' were the worst of the worst, one time this bitch actually stabbed me in the back. I've never trusted a nice person since then. I prefer the mean ones." 

Rosie laughed, "I'm sorry that happened to you. Tell you what, I'll call you if I have a bad feeling." 

Teddy pouted, "But what if he kills you before you can call me." Rosie rolled her eyes in amusement.

"You worry too much." 

"I don't, what if I follow you? I'd keep my distance, you wouldn't even know I'm there." Rosie laughed harder.

"Absolutely not. That is not happening. That would be like having your mom on a date with you." 

Teddy paused for a minute, before shaking it off and smiling, "You're right, that would be weird." The shifter thought for a moment before smiling and reaching into her boot and grabbed her mini cattle prod, "Here, take this, if he fucks around, turn this dial up to all and jab him in the neck. It might kill him but whatever."

Teddy waved her hand nonchalantly, Rosie rolled her eyes knowing the shifter was joking and put the taser in her pocket.

...............................................

Teddy teleported by the pool at the compound and started stripping, dropping her clothes on the ground. She limped towards the pool in her underwear and stepped in. As soon as she stepped in, the water around her started turning red from the blood that caked her body.

She floated on her back letting the water wash off the debris from the fall and the blood from the wound on her leg, which was now healed.

Teddy didn't know how long she was floating, eventually swimming to the edge and getting out. She gathered her clothes in her arms, not bothering to put them back on and walked inside the compound, soaking wet and dripping water everywhere.

"Tony's gonna kill me." Teddy muttered under her breath.

"You're damn right I will." The shifter spun around to see Tony with his arms crossed and Bucky standing next to him.

Bucky was staring at Teddy's half naked body in concern, there were more scars than he could count, some looked surgical and some looked jagged and torn. They covered her arms, legs some of her torso and there were a couple on her neck. The one that really stood out was about nine inches in length stretched across from her right hip going toward her stomach, it was jagged, like someone ripped it open with their bare hands and a blind person stitched it up.

"What happened there?" He's pointed out.

Teddy looked down at the scar and traced a hand over it. "An IED. First time I stitched myself up, my hands were shaking from being in so much pain, so that's why it looks so terrible."

"Can the two of you bond over scars later. Teddy go dry yourself and stop messing up my floors."

Teddy grinned and saluted him, "Aye Aye Captain!" With that the shifter ran off to be room.


	35. Chapter 35

Teddy was on a top secret mission, she could not be seen at all or she would be in serious trouble. This mission required stealth of the highest order. Which is why she was dressed in a black trench coat with a fedora and a fake moustache.

Walking into the bar, the shifter was on high alert, watching her targets as they talked and flirted, maneuvering around the crowd on the dance floor and sitting at the bar.

She followed them and sat ten feet away from them listening in on their conversation, cringing every time any one of them said something sappy like, 'I wish I looked as gorgeous as you' or the worst of the worst 'Did you fall from a vending machine? Cause you look like a snack' and the woman was laughing like that was genuinely funny. 

As this strange and fucked up conversation continued, the woman sitting next to her was getting hit on, hard. She kept telling the creep no thank you and he still continued, Teddy was going to leave it until he suggested they go to the bathroom and have a 'good time', pulling her arm so she could get up.

The shifter huffed and turned to face the back of the guy's head and shifted into a tall muscular man with a deep voice, wrapping his arm around the guy's chest, fondling his nipples and whispered into his ear.

"I'll fuck you in the bathroom if you don't leave this lady alone, I'll fuck you real good." The guy froze and Teddy ran his hands down the man's torso and placed them on his hips going to feel his ass. They guy squirmed out of Teddy's arms and spun around to look at him with rage in his eyes which quickly turned to fear when he saw who was talking to him.

"Sorry man." The guy ran off and Teddy giggled maniacally and shifted back. The lady looked at Teddy like she was a goddess with a big smile on her face.

"Thank you so much." Teddy shrugged.

"It was nothing, I couldn't just stand there and listen to that. Are you ok though?"

"I'm fine, I'm waiting on my girlfriend, she's running a little late. I'm Tiffany." She held out he hand and Teddy shook it.

"Theodore." Tiffany smiled.

"So what brings you to a bar dressed like that, Theodore?"

"My daughter's on a date, I'm making sure he keeps his hands to himself or I'm gonna cut 'em off." Tiffany frowned.

"You don't look old enough to have a daughter who can get into a bar."

"I had her really young, she's a senior in college."

"How young is really young."

"Thirteen. Wasn't exactly my choice either."

Tiffany nodded, "So, that's why you save women from creeps all the time."

Teddy smiled and nodded, "I usually kill them but I don't want to draw any attention to myself." Tiffany's eyes widened comically.

"What?" Teddy burst out laughing.

"I'm kidding, I just paralyze them from the neck down or cut off their hands." Tiffany still looked a bit worried, "Would it be better if I said I was a mercenary with major PTSD after I got out of the army?"

Tiffany smiled slightly but she still had a frown on her face, "A little bit." 

Teddy bent down and reached into her boot, pulling out one of her many tasers, handing it to Tiffany, "Okay, keep this if anymore creeps hit on you, just press this button and jam it in their necks, but not for too long, don't wanna kill them now. It charges itself. My brother made it for me."

Tiffany took the taser and put it in her purse, "You are strange. I like you." 

Teddy smiled and looked back in the direction of Rosie and the creep, and saw them heading towards the back door. Teddy turned to Tiffany and said, "Well this was fun but I have to get going now, have a nice night darling, be safe and zap the creeps."

The shifter followed the couple outside, Rosie looked drunk as fuck while her date looked sober. He was leading her outside, holding her up. Teddy took her cattle prod from her trench coat and exited the bar into an alley where she heard voices talking.

"No, stop it, Todd this isn't funny. Let go of me." That sounded like Rosie, Teddy immediately quickened her pace and found them. Todd had Rosie trapped between himself and a wall and Rosie could nearly stand up properly, the shifter walked directly behind Todd and jammed the cattle prod in his dick. He squealed and dropped to the floor in pain, cupping his crotch. Teddy stuck the cattle prod on his crotch two more times which left Todd crying th the pain until he passed out.

Teddy put the prod back in the trench coat and turned to Rosie, she was sitting on the ground now, eyes drooping as she stated up at Teddy. The shifter lifted her up bridal style and put her purse in her lap.

"Thanks Mom." Was the last thing Rosie said before she passed out.

"Oh, fuck." Teddy breathed and turned around to look at the unconscious prick on the ground, she swiftly kicked him in the dick again and walked away, "It's always the Todds I swear." The

Teddy teleported back to the compound, slightly startling Thor and Loki from their television show.

"Sorry guys." The two gods nodded and looked at Rosie in her arms.

"Is that her?"

"Yes. She had a rough night, so I'm gonna put her to bed. Night guys." Teddy walked away to her room.

"Goodnight, Lady Stark." 

......................................................

Rosie woke up in a strange bed and began to panic slightly, until she looked up. Panic turned into confusion when she saw the pink and purple monstrosity, she sat up in the bed and looked around the large room, finding bullets everywhere, knives stuck in the walls and a Batman bed spread.

She heard snoring on her left and looked across to see Teddy sitting in an arm chair with her sword laid out in her lap, her head resting on the back of the chair with her lips slightly parted.

Rosie immediately calmed down when she realized her mother saved her, again, picking up a blanket and draping it over her. She started to feel hungry and looked down at what she was wearing, her jeans from last night and her shirt was ripped, Rosie looked around the room and her eyes landed on a sweater, she quickly put it on and walked out of the room.

"Where's the kitchen." She whispered to herself.

"Down this corridor to the left, Ms. White." A voice from the ceiling answered.

Rosie jumped slightly but remembered what Teddy told her about FRIDAY. "Thank you." Rosie followed the directions and walked into the kitchen finding most of the Avengers at the table eating breakfast, Loki was off in a corner with Bucky, talking and eating and Tony was in the kitchen drinking coffee.

"Good morning." Everyone froze and looked at her, Tony spat out his coffee and Steve choked on his French toast. Thor and Loki smiled at her and waved, while everyone else looked at her curiously. Rosie was confused at the reaction she got and they all they sat and stared in silence, for what felt like an hour before Teddy strolled into the kitchen in basketball shorts and a tank top.

"You people act like you've never seen a female in your life." The shifter grabbed Rosie's hand and pulled her farther into the kitchen.

"But that's," Wanda was cut off by Teddy.

"Yes, this is Rosie. You guys can stop staring now. What do you want sweetheart?"

"Do you have frosted flakes?" 

Tony snorted, "I see the resemblance now." Teddy poured it out in two bowls and have one to Rosie.

"We're going to the common room, tell if you need me or don't, I don't care. I would prefer if you didn't though."

They sat facing each other and ate in silence before Teddy sighed and asked, "How long have you known?"

"About you being my mother?" Teddy nodded. "I've known since you walked into the diner for the first time. My adopted parents told me about you and the reason you couldn't keep me. And I saw you around, all the time, like when I was nine and almost got hit by a car, you pulled me out of the road. And when I was twelve and I got bullied by some girls, the next day they came to school and were to terrified to even look at me, and when I was sixteen and my first boyfriend broke my heart, you punched him in the face and told me men are dicks. "

Teddy frowned, "I was not wearing my face for any of those moments."

"I can see through your many faces, I don't think you can trick me with that."

Teddy pouted, "That's not fair." Rosie laughed. "Alright, finish eating and I'll take you back home."

"Okay."


	36. Chapter 36

About a month and a half after the incident with Rosie, the two of them have been spending more time together, they've gone shopping, for weapons, visited museums- it was at night after it closed because Teddy doesn't like crowds- illegally, sometimes they just hung out and ate dinner together. Teddy and her daughter were getting to know each other and it was going great, which was why the shifter knew something horrible was gonna happen, everyone told her she was being paranoid but she knew it she could feel it in her bones, some bad was gonna happen. Things were just too nice, every time things are nice, something always goes wrong for Teddy.

The shifter was out doing another job for Azrael. Some mob boss or something, Teddy didn't remember, all she knew was the he was killing a lot of people for no reason and Azrael asked her to stop him.

She was slicing through his henchmen like they were butter, stabbing and shooting everyone in her path.

When she was done with them, Teddy took a minute to breath before making her way to the bosses office. 

"Hey, stop or I'll shoot you!" Teddy looked back at the idiot who said that, it looked like she missed one of the henchmen while she was fighting, killing, the rest of them. He was standing in the far corner from the shifter holding his gun in trembling hands. Teddy walked closer to him till she was right in front of him, his hands were shaking so much he almost dropped the gun so Teddy took it from him.

"This is your first night on the job isn't it?" She asked in a calm voice. He nodded his head. " Is this something you've dreamed of doing your whole life, you know, being a henchmen? "

"No, I hate it here. I'm a cop, undercover, they made me take this job or they would've fired me. I need my job." Teddy nodded and sighed, she gave him back his gun and looked him in the eye.

"Come with me. What's your name darling?" 

"I'm Ben."

"I'm Teddy."

Ben followed Teddy to the bosses office, he was confused because he was 90% sure she was gonna kill him, but then she didn't and he was confused.

"Why didn't you kill me?" He asked with a shaky voice.

Teddy looked back at him and answered, "My boss said not to kill the cop, Ben. He's a good guy. And I don't kill cops, all the time, only the bad ones."

Ben relaxed a little and breathed deeply. They were outside of the boss's office and Teddy kicked down the door, drawing her sword. The boss and pulled his gun from the desk drawer but was too late because, Teddy threw the sword through his chest and he slumped against the desk. Ben awkwardly stood in the doorway, while Teddy kicked the dead man out of the chair and put a flash drive into his laptop and began typing.

"What are you doing?" Ben asked.

"This is so you don't get into trouble at work. If they ask why you didn't bring me in, say I threatened you or something, make it believable." Teddy pulled the drive from the computer and stood up, pulling her sword out from the dead man's chest. She handed the drive to Ben and walked out of the office, he went to follow her but when he turned the corner after her, she was gone. Ben scrambled for his phone to call it in.

.................................................................

Teddy was on the roof of a very tall building, smoking a cigarette, sitting on the ledge looking down at all the lights and people. She still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was gonna happen, no matter what anyone told her, the shifter always followed her gut and her gut was telling her something is gonna happen, and soon.

She sighed and got up off the ledge and walked to the door to get down. She didn't even get to take one step, as she felt something attach to her neck followed by a searing pain going through her entire body. Teddy collapsed on the ground and passed out.

A dark figure came out of the shadows and smiled, "The Grandmaster is going to be very happy, new champion."

.......................................................

When Teddy woke up she was strapped a chair with, what looked like reinforced metal cuffs. She struggled to get them off but they were to strong.

All of a sudden the room she was in lit up and some woman started talking about some 'Grandmaster'. Teddy started to slightly freak out a bit when the voice said to prepare yourself, whatever that means. She closed her eyes tightly and prayed that it wasn't as bad as she thought.

It suddenly got quiet and Teddy opened her eyes, only to be even more confused. "I got kidnapped by Jeff Goldblum?" There was a man in a very colourful bathrobe who looked eerily similar to Jeff Goldblum, he frowned in confusion.

"I am not this Jeff, what kind of name is Jeff anyway? I am the Grandmaster and apparently, you are my new champion, according to this guy right here." He pointed to the blue guy on his left and Teddy just realized he was there.

"I've been watching you for sometime now, this one is a grim reaper, master, she's the one who killed Thanos." Grandmaster looked intrigued and Teddy knew she wasn't leaving here anytime soon.

"Get her ready, I wanna see her in action. But first," The Grandmaster snapped his fingers and a slimy green creature came out of nowhere and snapped a metal collar around her neck.

"What the fuck was that?" She was breathing heavily now and very close to a panic attack.

"That my dear, is so you don't teleport out of here and leave like my last champion and that Lord of thunder. If you even think about it you're gonna get zapped, if you try to take it off, zap, if you even touch it you're gonna get zapped. Now take her." The chair started moving away and the shifter started struggling in the chair.

...........................................

After being hosed down, dressed and having a non consensual hair cut, Teddy was put in a room with other warriors, some looked dead, others looked like they were tired. Teddy sat in a corner by herself and tried to contact Azrael, it took a while but eventually she got through.

"Teddy! Oh thank God you just suddenly disappeared and I can't feel you anymore. Where are you?"

" Someplace called Sakaar, with some Grandmaster. Can you get me out of here? "

"Unfortunately, no, I don't know where this place is and I can't feel you anymore. I'm sorry, Teddy." 

Teddy nodded understanding, "Could you tell Tony? I will see what I can do."

"I will. I'm sorry I can't help you Teddy." Azrael said sadly.

"It's fine, don't worry. I'll get me out of here in no time." Azrael smile sadly and disappeared, the shifter sighed heavily and leaned back against the wall. 

The door opened and a thin blue alien walked in, "New champion, you are up." Teddy stood up and followed the blue thing to the weapons rack.

"Fuck my life."


	37. Chapter 37

The Avengers, except Tony, were eating breakfast in the kitchen, when Rosie walked in with a worried expression on her face. She looked around the kitchen for a while before her expression became a panicked one.

"Has anyone seen my mother, she didn't come by last night and she has never missed a Saturday." 

"She had a job yesterday, maybe she was doing clean up and couldn't make it." Nat suggested. Bucky shook his head in disagreement.

"She came home yesterday afternoon and put away most of her weapons and changed out of her gear. Her sword's in her room." 

Loki nodded agreeing, "I saw her right before she left, she said she was going to get some air before going to the diner."

Rosie sighed and her shoulders slumped, "I already checked the roof, she's not there either." 

Just then, Tony walked into the kitchen in his pajamas, "Guys I don't think we're gonna see Teddy for a while. Her boss just talked to me, apparently she's been taken to some place called Sakaar to be the Grandmaster's new champion. Azrael said she can't find Teddy anywhere and Teddy can't teleport." 

Thor frowned, "Wait, did you say Sakaar?"

Tony looked at him, "You know it?"

"I've been there, I don't know where it is, but I've been there for a while, Hulk has too and Loki. The Grandmaster is insane, he makes warriors fight each other in an arena to the death for his entertainment."

Bruce nodded along, "I remember, wasn't he Loki's sugar daddy?" 

Loki scoffed, "I am no one's sugar baby. Yes, I fucked him to get in his good graces, multiple times. But that does not mean he was my sugar daddy."

Tony snorted, "I think it does Frosty."

"Can we focus please?" Rosie spoke up. "How are we supposed to get my mom back."

"If we don't know where it is, there's no way we could get her back now, it would take months, maybe years. Azrael said Teddy's already working on a way to get out and I know my sister can take care of herself. She's not gonna wait around for someone to save her, she's gonna get out, I know she is, even if she has to blow up the whole planet." Tony said, he was sure of what he said, he knew his sister would be home soon.

................................................................

The audience screamed for their champion as she stepped into the arena dressed in her usual black armor with the royal blue detail, chanting her name like a prayer, waving black and blue flags. Teddy raised her arms in the air soaking in the praise as she walked around the arena with her axe strapped to her back.

"God killer, God killer, God killer!" Teddy loved this, the people loved her here, not like on earth where she had to hide who she was, in fear of mad scientist or bigots or looks of disgust. Everyone here knew what she was and they loved her for it.

She's been here for almost a year now, the first few months were somewhat difficult trying to get used to all this. The Grandmaster gave her her very own quarters and she has the freedom to go where ever she liked, although the shock collar was still on.

They called her God Killer, because of what went down with Thanos, the mad titan had everyone quaking at his name enough for everyone to call him a god, but when news spread that some Terran woman killed him, they were intrigued. 

Her opponent tonight was a red alien who was slightly taller than her and very muscular, Teddy didn't know his name. When he walked out he was met with a series of boos, but he said nothing and walked out with his head held high drawing his sword and shield, he snapped on his helmet and dropped into a battle stance.

From what Teddy could tell this man was a warrior and he didn't lose very often and that was about to change.

The Grandmaster started the fight and the shifter waves to her fans one sat time before drawing the axe.

Her opponent charged at her with a battle cry and Teddy stood her ground and waited until he was close enough, she swung her axe at him and he blocked with his shield. Unfortunately for him though, Teddy put most of her strength into the swing, so he flew backwards and crashed into the stands.

The crowd hollered and chanted and Teddy punched the air, "YEAH!!" Her opponent for up from the ground with determination in his eyes and charged at the shifter once more. Teddy calculated his every move and she saw he was coming at her the exact same way he did before, only this time he ducked out of the way when she swung the axe. 

He swiped her in her side with the sword and the shifter didn't even flinch, she merely kicked him a few feet away and swung her axe, only for him to block it. 

After a few rounds of him blocking her hits and slicing her, Teddy was becoming annoyed, she kicked him back into the stands and dropped her axe, she had only done this a few times but it seemed to be a crowd favorite.

The crowd seemed to get louder as they changed their chant, "Eat, Eat, Eat!!!" 

Teddy's opponent frowned in confusion wondering what the chant meant but ignored it and charged at Teddy for the last time. 

Teddy shifted into a giant blue snake and hissed at the red alien, "Insssect!" The alien's eyes grew as he dropped his weapons and tried to run, only to be wrapped up in her tail. She coiled herself around him and threw him up in the air, opening her mouth, he fell in and she snapped her mouth shut and swallowed. 

The crowd's cheers turned deafening as they all jumped up in celebration. Teddy slithered around the arena and shifted back, arms spread wide and a wide smile on her face as she soaked in all the praise. She felt like a God and she wouldn't have it any other way.

..................................................

After all the excitement died down, Teddy snuck away to her room. She was exhausted from shifting into that snake and she just wanted to crash now, but she couldn't, she had more important things to do than sleep right now, like getting of the planet. Everything was ready, she just needed to do one more thing before she left.

In order to make sure she wasn't kidnapped and brought here again, she had to destroy the entire planet. There weren't any children here, or innocents so she didn't feel particularly guilty about doing it, it was literally a heap of garbage anyway.

She had just planted the final charge in the center of it all and she was ready. All there was left to do was push a button and teleport. As easy as it sounded it was going to hurt like hell, since the collar was still on, she was going to be electrocuted severely, but it was worth it. As much as she liked it here, she missed her daughter and Tony.

The shifter prepared herself for the excruciating pain and pushed the button everything around her started shaking and collapsing. She thought about getting to earth like she always did and breathed. The collar released bolts of electricity into her body, Teddy concentrated and tried to ignore the pain, she felt as if she was being burnt alive and she could feel the skin of her hands peel off. She breathed heavily and collapsed into the floor.

The planet was imploding around her and she could hear everyone screaming, she concentrated harder, she could feel herself start to fade as the pain became more intense and excruciating. As her room started to collapse Teddy let out a wail of pain before she disappeared.

Sakaar exploded and it's remains scattered all over the galaxy, the Grandmaster escaped in one of his ships, so he was fine, but everyone else was not as lucky.


	38. Chapter 38

It was five weeks since Teddy got abducted by aliens and Tony was getting antsy, normally the shifter would be back by now and Tony was nervous that this was one situation she could t get out of. He was in his workshop, it was about eight at night, updating his suits with the news on in the background, occasionally glancing at the screen, until one story caught his attention.

'Every law enforcement agency, is still on a man hunt for a vigilante called Teddy, who, not only killed eighty men, but blew up a warehouse. This is the same vigilante who saved twenty six children from sex traffickers, who were all under the age of ten, and put an end to the La Morte mafia, who wreaking havoc in the California area, Teddy also saved the life of FBI agent Ben Ramsey, who's cover was blown minutes before Teddy arrived. The public has made it known, to law enforcement wanting to put Teddy in prison, exactly what they think by protesting outside of their office. Yesterday there was a riot which had officers concerned for their life. And as you can see people are still protesting against imprisoning Teddy.'

Tony snorted, only Teddy could start a riot over something like that. Looking away from the screen and back to his work, listening to the story, chuckling at the hilarity of the situation. 

'Breaking news, it appears that a meteor crashed landed just outside San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge. Moments later, a large snake like creature, emerged from the water and disappeared. Locals are saying it's the loch ness monster, others are saying it's aliens. Agents have been dispatched to search for the creature, but it is too early to make a statement.'

Tony's eyes widened and he ran out of his workshop.

"Guys!"

...............................................................

Teddy was soaked and half naked, most of his clothes had burned on entry to earth and now his pants were nearly covering his private areas and his shirt was just a rag. He was cold, hungry, barefoot and tired. The only upside to the entire situation was that the collar had been destroyed on reentry but he was too tired to teleport.

He walked around San Francisco looking for a clothing store first. It took a while, since he was so close to collapsing, but he found one. All the stores were closed since it was night time, which was a plus, he picked the lock and went inside. Taking a pair of sweatpants and a thick oversized pullover with some sneakers. Teddy got dressed in the store and left his wet rags behind when he left.

The shifter walked around, pickpocketing people to get enough money for food and stumbled across a convenience store. It was almost empty, only consisting of a man talking to himself and the Asian lady at the cash register. He made his way around the store picking up four boxes of chocolate, three large bags of chips and a bottle of tequila. 

He made his way to the cash register, catching the last part of a conversation.

"I have a parasite, night Mrs. Chen." 

Teddy didn't know what that was about but the lady looked pretty shocked so there must be been something he missed.

After paying for his shit, Teddy left the store to look for a phone to call Tony.

.............................................................

"How do you know it's Teddy, it could be anything Tony." Natasha stated.

"I know Teddy, the loch Ness monster thing is something Teddy would do. We should," Tony was cut off by his phone ringing, he dug it out of his pocket and answered, "Hello, Teddy?" He immediately put it on speaker.

"Tony, I need you to come get me. I'm in San Francisco right now, someone just tried to rob me but I beat him up and stole his phone."

"Good for you. Where am I picking you up from exactly?" 

"I don't know, I've never been to San Francisco before, so I'm totally lost. Can't you do the GPS tracking thing? I'm cold."

"Were you the meteor just now?" Bruce piped in from the back.

"Yes, that was me. I woke up under water and I panicked a bit and may have accidentally turned into the loch Ness monster, sorry about that."

"Yeah we know, it's all over the news." Tony said.

"Awesome. I've always wanted to make the news."

Tony snorted, "You're actually on the news twice, apparently the cops want to arrest you for the warehouse and all the sex traffickers you killed, but it started a riot and now the public hate the law enforcement. Everybody loves you, except the cops of course."

"This is even better, oh man, this is great." 

"Alright, I have your location, stay put I'm coming to get you."

"Okay."

Tony left to get him but left his phone so everyone cold talk to the shifter.

Thor frowned when he got a thought, "What happened to Sakaar?"

It got silent on Teddy's side for a little before he answered, "Well you see, what had happened was, I may or may not have blown it up a little."

"You blew up an entire planet?" Loki said, sounding quite proud.

"Yes, it was just so easy, I had to. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved it there, they called me the God Killer and they loved it when I turned into a giant snake and ate people, but after a year I got bored. I was also very angry they put a shock collar on me so I couldn't escape."

Loki chuckled, "Not even Thor got the shock collar." Thor scoffed from beside him.

"How's Rosie?" Teddy asked.

"She's fine, apparently she got a boyfriend." Natasha answered with a smile on her face know Teddy's exact reaction.

"What?"

"It's that cop you saved a few weeks back, he came here looking for you and they met and hit it off."

Teddy growled, "I'm gonna kill him."

Bucky snickered along with Sam. "He's fine, we already threatened him. He knows that if he fucks up, you're gonna murder him so he's being extra careful."

"He better. I see Tony so I'm gonna talk to you all when we get back."


	39. Chapter 39

"Do you know that Teddy is trending on Twitter?" Peter asked Tony, the billionaire was making a few adjustments to the boy's suit when he asked that question, which caused Tony to look at him in bewilderment.

"What?" 

Peter nodded and continued, "Yeah, someone started #JusticeForTeddy last night and over one hundred million people used it. Also some people are coming forward with their stories about how Teddy helped them."

"FRIDAY what is he talking about?" Tony stopped everything he was doing and focus his attention on the hologram that appeared on the table.

"It's true boss, the person who started the hashtag goes by the handle @Tiff and she says '#JusticeForTeddy if not for Teddy I would be been raped by a man who couldn't take no for an answer.' This was retweeted eighteen million times and now people are coming forward with their stories."

Tony went through the stories most of them were pretty awful, Teddy saved people from domestic abuse, poverty, sexual assault, dirty cops, the list went on and on, no one had a bad thing to say. Not even some cops, stating the shifter had saved a unit from a collapsing building, shoot outs with criminals and more.

There was one that caught Tony's eye was by @TimTam it said '#JusticeForTeddy A year ago, I was going to jump off the empire state building, and Teddy talked me down, and her words gave me something to live for. She deserves better than this.'

"Woah." Tony breathed out in awe. 

"I know right, I didn't even know Teddy did all this, I thought he was just this crazy mercenary when we first met. But this is awesome." Peter smiled brightly and continued looking through the tweets.

"Boss there are more stories on every social media platform, millions of other stories. This is bigger than when you told everyone you were Iron man, or the Civil War situation." FRIDAY added.

"Where's Teddy now?" Tony asked the AI.

"He's still asleep boss." Referring to last night when the shifter passed out in his arms on their way home.

"Good, let him sleep. I'll show this to him later. I can't believe Shifty is more popular than me." 

.........................................................

Teddy woke up that night and was heading straight for the kitchen, when he heard muffled talking from the common room. He walked in to see everyone with their eyes glued to the television. He wasn't sure why until he saw the story the news was playing. 'Riots in Times Square caused by a mercenary called Teddy.' '#JusticeForTeddy broke the record of the most trended hashtag on Twitter.' Teddy snorted in shock and everyone spun around to face him.

"What the fuck is going on?" 

After a few moments of debating who was gonna tell him Tony rolled his eyes and answered. "Two days ago, the police called for your arrest for the warehouse incident, and everyone you've ever saved is coming out and protesting, but yesterday, the police put out a kill on sight command and it started multiple riots."

Nat piped in, "Even cops are on strike. And it's not just in New York, it's all over in Russia, Canada, Germany, some parts of the Caribbean and that's just the tip of the iceberg." 

"You're all over the internet, and the most talked about person ever. The cops are questioning people who've met you but nobody's saying anything, most of them are lawyering up." Tony added and looked over to his little brother, who was red in the face and looked like he was seconds away from crying. 

"Killing a few people does have its benefits." Loki muttered under his breath.

"I don't think 5,126 is a few Loks." Tony snorted. "You always tell me you hate everyone and look at this, you helped all these people and now everyone hates law enforcement for doing their jobs. I couldn't even pull off something like this." 

Teddy was speechless for a moment before he groaned softly, "I'm seriously wanted again?" 

Everyone rolled their eyes in amusement. "That's seriously what you got from all of this?" 

"I'm used to everyone loving me, okay, what's not to love? But having to create a whole new face all the time gets a little overwhelming." Teddy threw his head back and groaned. "I'm gonna eat frosted flakes and drown myself."

Teddy walked out, towards the kitchen and Bucky rolled his eyes, "He is way too fucking dramatic."


	40. Chapter 40

Four priests walk into their, Saint Margaret's, to find, standing at the alter, a stranger, dressed in a priest's robes with the hood on, lighting candles. The stranger's back was towards them so they couldn't see their face. The four priests stared for a bit before one of them broke the silence.

"Who are you?" The stranger stopped lighting the candles and put down the stick, but they didn't turn around, instead, they knelt down and clasped their hands and started whispering rapidly.

A second priest spoke up, "Hey, he asked you a question."

The stranger stood up and slowly turned around, but they still couldn't see their face, and said, "By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and knife." The stranger threw a large hunting knife into the chest of one of the priests, killing him instantly. The other three pulled out a gun and started shooting at the stranger. 

They just calmly walked towards the priests and threw two more knives, hitting two other priests in their chest, killing them instantly as well. The last one kept shooting until he ran out of bullets, he quickly dropped the gun and tried to run out, but as soon as he turned around the stranger was right in front of him.

"When my boss told me to go kill some priests, I thought she was going mad, but I didn't question it because she's an angel, and she wouldn't make me kill a holy man. I was still hesitant at first, until I saw your basement, and you know what," They grabbed the priest by his throat and squeezed, "I am going to carry you to the gates of hell myself and watch you burn." 

The stranger squeezed a lot harder and broke his neck, they dropped him roughly on the floor and walked away. 

....................................................

"An old HYDRA lab was found in the basement of a church named Saint Margaret's, where numerous bodies and prisoners were found. What looked like experiments gone wrong, some of the victims left alive were left severely deformed or scarred beyond repair. The police got an anonymous tip about hearing gunshots from the church earlier this morning and found four dead fake priests at the alter, three stabbed and one with a broken neck.."

Teddy snorted at the television and continued eating his cereal, "They're making it sound way less dramatic than it actually was. I was like 'knife to meet you' and 'I now pronounce you man and knife', it was awesome, those HYDRA bastards were so scared, literally, shaking when they saw me in that robe. By the way, I'm keeping that robe. It's so soft." 

"I thought you said you wouldn't work while you were wanted, that you would lay low?" Tony asked, while working on some new tech.

They were both in his workshop, Tony was working and Teddy was watching the news. The shifter came down hours ago after he got back from the church to keep Tony company. And annoy him a bit.

"I am laying low, but when Azrael told me to go kill some priests, I got a little curious and I just had to do it. But not to worry, I didn't tell anyone my real name and no one saw my face, so I'm all good." 

"Police are speculating that this may be the work of the vigilante, Teddy, as one of the victims said a strange person, dressed in a priest's robes, said to call him Ted, while he was comforting the prisoners." Tony snorted and Teddy slapped his forehead. "Police are still investigating, who Teddy really is. Some are speculating it may be Theodore Stark, since she may have access to a lot of weaponry and gadgets to pull this off and her nickname is Teddy. Theodore Stark was in the army for a decade making lieutenant colonel before being discharged after her and her team were hit by an IED, causing her to have PTSD, which made it hard for her to lead her team. This is all just speculation from a user on Twitter who thought it would make sense, going by the handle @iamsherlocked, police stated they would investigate this deduction. In other news. ."

Teddy gaped at the television, and his blood went cold, "Oh shit, damn you Sherlock. What the fuck. Now I have to come up with some awesome alibi or get out of the country for a while. Tony help me." 

Tony paused his project and looked at his brother, who was pouting at him. He rolled his eyes at Teddy, "That doesn't work on me. If you want to get out of the country, we have a mission tomorrow in Norway and we need a sniper."

Teddy frowned, "Isn't Bucky a sniper?"

"He says he doesn't want to do that anymore." 

"Well in that case, sign me up. I haven't used my baby in awhile, I'm sure she still works perfectly." 

Tony got up and pulled out a case from under a table. He dropped it on the silver table and opened it, "I upgraded your rifle actually, I couldn't have you walking around with that piece of crap, but I knew you wouldn't want a new one, so I fixed the old one. Good as new." 

Teddy got up from the couch and looked it over. The rifle looked the same, the shifter picked it up, it was lighter than it used to be and the cartridge looked different. "What's up with the cartridge?"

Tony placed four bullets on the table each of them looked different, one was normal, one was see through but it looked like it had smoke inside, one was black and the last one was white. "The first one is your standard sniper bullet but it can pierce bullet proof anything and can pierce up to 10 inches of any metal, except vibranium of course. The second one is tear gas. The black one, you're gonna love this, explodes in impact, and the white one puts out fires, I know you're probably not gonna use that one since you like fires so much, you actually don't need the gun for this one,"Tony flipped the white one upside down to show him the little switch, "just flip that and it's gonna go off. This one was actually Peter's idea, he wanted to make sure you don't get burned when you're blowing shit up."

Teddy smiled brightly, "I love it. Can I try it out now?" 

"Knock yourself out Shifty," Teddy turned to leave, "but not literally, like last time."


	41. Chapter 41

The mission went off without a hitch, it was just Natasha and Teddy since it was a covert retrieval mission so there was no need for Iron man. Teddy just watched her six while she went to work. There was the occasional close call but they both pulled it off without any problems.

They returned to the compound the next day, walking side by side, talking about some random thing. Teddy had her rifle slung across her back and she was messing around with one of her knives, when two police detectives stopped them.

"Morning Lieutenant Colonel Stark, I'm Detective Garroway and this is my partner Detective O'Brien, we be been asked to bring you in regarding the Teddy case."

Teddy paused and put away the knife, "Right, the case. Okay, gimme a second. Nat? Can you take this to my room please?" Teddy pulled the rifle from her back and handed it to Natasha, who nodded and walked away.

"Lead the way Detectives."

They both nodded and walked towards their car and held open the back door for Teddy to climb in.

........................................

Teddy and the Detectives were in the interrogation room with a large file between them. There were pictures of most of Teddy's old jobs and the recent ones, indicating this case had been open for a while.

"I see you've been busy." The detectives watched Teddy closely as she sifted through the pictures.

"Lieutenant Colonel Stark we have to ask. Where were you two days ago around eleven? " Garroway asked.

Teddy didn't look up from the photos when she answered, "At church."

"Which church?" O'Brien asked.

Teddy finally looked up from the photos and looked both detectives in the eye, "Why don't you asked what you really want to know?"

There was a pause before Garroway spoke up, "Are you the vigilante known as Teddy?" 

Teddy sighed, "That term vigilante is incorrect. I am a grim reaper, I collect the darkest souls and carry them to my boss who carries them to hell. I'm more like a mercenary." 

The detectives looked at the shifter in surprise and Teddy rolled her eyes.

"You weren't expecting that huh. I don't like lying, it makes me feel bad and you two are just doing your jobs, I respect that. So, what happens now?" 

"We have to take you to jail." O'Brien said, he was clearly still shocked at the confession and Teddy couldn't exactly blame him. Garroway on the other hand looked curious.

"What happened at the warehouse?"

The shifter let out a sigh, "They were trafficking kids, some of those fuckers took turns, if you know what I'm saying. When I found the kids, they were all huddled in the corner and they were covered in dirt, some of them were crying. When I took this job, I didn't know there would be been kids, my boss just said to free the captives, so when I found kids, I got a little angry and I just cut everyone down."

"What about Mary?" Garroway asked cautiously .

Teddy took a shaky breath and ran her fingers through her hair, "I found her when that Milo fucker was done with her, she was in a bath tub bleeding and crying her little eyes out. It brought up a lot of childhood trauma and I went a little too far when I chopped him to pieces." 

Garroway nodded, "That's enough for now. We have to book you now and make some calls."

Teddy nodded understanding, "It's fine."

....................................................

Teddy was in the cell with two other women for a few hours, Maureen, who was in for assault and battery, and Stacy, who got caught stealing a car.

Maureen had been telling her how she got in there, "That man raped my brother, so I beat his black ass and I was gonna kill him, but the cops showed up and arrested me before I could do anything."

Teddy and Stacy nodded along, agreeing with her, "I would've cut his balls off and fed them to him." Stacy added.

A chubby officer stopped outside the cell and looked at the three of them strangely before addressing why he was there.

"Lieutenant Colonel Stark, you are free to go." He opened the cell and Teddy walked out confused. The shifter turned to her new friends.

"Bye girls, stay out of trouble." They waved at her with smiled on their faces.

"Bye Teddy." 

They walked out of the holding area and out where the other officers were at work. At the sight of Teddy, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at the shifter as she followed the cop to the waiting area, where he handed her the bag of her possessions and left her standing there.

Teddy frowned in confusion before looking around and smiling when she spotted Tony. 

"How the hell did you pull this off?"

"Wasn't me this time. Apparently, someone got a Presidential Pardon."

Teddy's eyes resembled saucers and she snorted in surprise, "What? Really? Stop messing with me." Tony rolled his eyes at his sister and walked out of the station.

"Your arrest was all over the news and when the President caught wind of it he drew up the Pardon. Apparently, one of the prisoners in the church was his brother who he thought was dead for years. It was his thank you for bringing him back." 

Tony hopped in the car and Teddy followed, "This justice system is so weird, if I hadn't been a Lieutenant Colonel, or come from a semi respectable family, or saved the President's brother, I would've totally gotten the death sentence. It's not like they could kill me anyway, I've tried."

Tony looked across at his sister sadly, "What?"

Teddy rolled her eyes, "It was purely experimental, I wanted to see if I had any weaknesses anymore. Turns out I do not. I'm like a saner version of deadpool now, just that my limbs don't grow back. I'm not depressed or anything." 

"But still, what if you had died?" 

Teddy paused and thought for a moment, "Huh, I hadn't thought about that. Sorry about that then." 

Tony sighed in annoyance and started the car, "How are you smarter than me again?" 

"I'm not smarter than you. You mastered Thermonuclear Astrophysics over night, I don't even know how to work a computer properly."


	42. Chapter 42

It was early morning at the compound, everyone was still asleep and the sun had yet to rise, Teddy was slumped on the bathroom floor, emptying out her stomach and other things into the toilet. After what felt like hours, the shifter stopped puking and rested her head on the side of the toilet bowl, hands shaking and breathing heavily. She looked into the toilet bowl before she flushed it down and sighed at the sight of blood.

"Shit." She whispered. 

After cleaning up, the shifter exited her room and went down to her self appointed lab - Teddy uses it for her strange experiments - to run some tests.

........................

Tony walked into the at seven in the morning to find Teddy eating a box of chocolate donuts and a bottle of tequila. The shifter poured the tequila in a glass, drinking it in one go and slamming the glass in the table, quickly pouring another one.

"Someone's celebrating." Tony stated and walked straight to the coffee maker, pouring himself a cup.

"Yes, celebrating long life and eternal happiness." Teddy's sarcastic drawl made Tony look up from his coffee towards his little sister, she had clearly been crying, her face was red and her eyes were puffy and wet.

"What's up with you?" 

"Nothing much. Just found out my friend died." Teddy took another shot and Tony rolled his eyes.

"You don't have any friends. Try again." 

Teddy huffed, "Dammit, it's almost Christmas. What do you think I should get for Rosie and her lame cop boyfriend."

Tony shook his head, "No deflecting, what's wrong?"

"Just a nightmare is all." 

"Your nightmare food is cotton candy. Now the truth." 

Teddy sighed, "You know me too well." She took another shot, "I have lost all hope, for eight months I've tried to find a way to stop it but I can't find one. I've tried everything, magic and science, separate, sometimes at the same time, nothing is working. It's hopeless, so I'm gonna sit here and drown myself in donuts and tequila, because there is nothing left to do."

Tony looked at his sister in concern and slight confusion, "What are you talking about?"

The shifter set aside the glass and drank from the bottle, "I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been coughing up blood for months, but when I escaped from Sakaar I got so much worse. It started off as nose bleeds, the coughing got worse and now this morning, I puke up blood. I did scans and tests but nothing's coming up. I think I'm dying Tony."

All the blood drained from Tony's face when he heard this, "What?"

"I went to Azrael, Dr. Strange, hell I even went to the hospital, nobody's finding any thing wrong. So I did some tests myself and nothing, but the bleeding hasn't stopped and I don't know what the fuck is going on."

"Why didn't you tell me?" 

"I didn't want to worry you, you're so busy all the time and I know how stressed you are trying to get these pardons for Steve and the rest. I thought I could handle it on my own but I can't."

Tony raked his hands through his hair, "There must be something we can do. We can get Bruce to look it over."

Teddy took a bite out of the donut, "What makes you think he can do anything about this?" 

"It's better than nothing, Ted. I can't lose you. As soon as Bruce wakes up, both of us are gonna march down to that lab and we're gonna tell Bruce, you understand."

Teddy huffed, "Fine, whatever."

..........................................

"This does not look good." Bruce muttered, he and Tony were looking over at the screens. Bruce decided it was best of Teddy was put to sleep to get better results. He and Tony came up with the idea, to send Tony's nanotech inside of Teddy and they would record what was happening. 

"What do you mean?" 

"It looks like her organs are melting. I've never seen anything like this. Simple tests wouldn't have been able to pick this up because her healing factor is taking care of it temporarily but it can't hold it off for very long. Strange wouldn't have picked this up either since its not a magical problem."

Tony looked across at his sister sadly, "So, she's dying?" 

"It looks that way, and I don't think she has that much time left. Unless we could find a way to stop her organs from doing that, she's got at least six weeks. I'm sorry Tony."

"Do you have any idea why they're doing that?" 

"She said this started eight months ago. That was when Thanos was here. Do you think that has anything to do with what's going on?"

"I was on Titan and it's not happening to me, so we can rule out alien planet. What's the one thing Teddy did that no one else did? What did she do before she crash landed on Titan?"

Bruce thought it over for a little while, "She killed the alien that went for Vision, when everyone was running at Thanos she went behind him and cut off his arm, she picked up the gauntlet and sent it to Loki and then she just teleported out of there." 

"She touched the gauntlet? With her bare hands?" 

Bruce nodded, "Yes, she didn't exactly have time to put on gloves with a mad man running at her, so she just picked it up and sent it away. You think that's the problem?"

"I don't know, we could asked Thor or Loki. Maybe they know something we dont." Tony wondered out loud.

...................................

"A mere mortal touching a weapon of such power would melt from the inside and choke on their blood. Why do you ask?" Loki answered without even looking away from the television.

Tony shook his head, "Nothing, just curious. Is there anyway to stop it from happening?"

Loki looked across at Tony, "You do know I'm the God of Lies right. Who's the moron that touched the gauntlet?"

"Teddy."

"What? When?" Loki looked surprised at the mention of his friend's name.

"When Thanos was here." Tony slumped in the couch.

"I told her not to touch it, the damage is irreversible, there is nothing magic can do. It's a miracle she held on this long."

"Not much longer. Bruce estimated she's got about six weeks left."

"Can I see her?"

"Of course. She's with Bruce."


	43. Chapter 43

It had been a few days after Teddy's diagnosis and the shifter would not rest, much to her brothers annoyance. Tony tried to get her to rest, to relax in her last days, but she refused, she was going to use the rest doing as she normally does. Azrael tried to stop her as well, but Teddy wouldn't budge, so the angel gave her less and less hits to do.

Teddy was hanging out with Rosie and her boyfriend Ben at Coney island, she meant to tell both of them today, when they all went home, she just wanted to enjoy some time with her daughter before it became depressing.

This was her first time actually hanging out with Ben, but they met briefly about two weeks ago. He had a case he was working on and didn't have any time to relax. So far, Ben was fine, Teddy didn't get any bad vibes from the officer, so he was safe. For now.

"Mom, I'm going to the bathroom, could you stay here with Ben please. And be nice." Rosie asked. The shifter huffed and nodded, watching Rosie walk away.

When the girl was out of sight, Teddy turned to Ben, grabbed his collar and lifted him in the air, bring his face close to get face.

"If you hurt her I will kill you, I don't care if I'm dead and gone, I will come back to life and gut you, hanging you, with your own intestines. Understood?" Ben nodded quickly with his eyes wide open. "That night in the warehouse I didn't shoot you because you have kind eyes, but if you make me regret that decision you're going to feel what I did to you in the after life." Teddy put down the frightened man and pat his cheek.

Rosie came back a few minutes later, smiling as usual and it almost made Teddy rethink her decision of telling her. Teddy grinned at her daughter.

"Let's go, I'm gonna win you a teddy bear." The two of them walked off with Ben trailing after them, still looking a little pale after the threat.

"You already gave me a bear for my birthday."

"One can never have too many teddy bears, darling." Teddy stuffed her hands inside her jacket pockets.

"Can you not put a knife set in this one? Or a gun?" Rosie turned toward her mother. Teddy pouted slightly and Rosie shook her head, not having any of it.

"Fine."

..................................

This had to be the hardest thing the shifter has ever had to do. How do you tell one of the only people that love you you're dying? Rosie wasn't like Tony where he would hide his tears, she would not, and Teddy didn't know how to comfort a crying person. Luckily, Ben would be there and hopefully, he wasn't useless.

They say in Rosie's living room, each with a drink. Rosie had wine, Ben had a beer and Teddy, as usual, was nursing a bottle of tequila. 

The shifter rested the bottle on Rosie's coffee table and let out a sigh. "Okay, time to get serious."

They both looked across at Teddy, "What's wrong?"

Teddy looked at them and took another drink from the bottle, she put it down and ran her hands through her hair repeatedly.

"You see, what had happened was," Rosie rolled her eyes.

"Quit stalling. What's going on?" 

Teddy held her breath and blurted out, "I'm dying."

Rosie's face dropped, "What?"

Teddy sighed and explained the situation, she didn't leave out anything. Rosie's eyes welled up and as soon as the shifter finished talking, the tears flowed down her face. Rosie got up out of her seat and climbed into her mother's lap and wrapped around her like a koala, burying her head in Teddy's neck. Ben sat on the opposite couch looking at the two of them. Rosie's crying and Teddy's panicked expression, awkwardly patting her daughter's arm.

.................................

"Okay, fine. I'll take it easy. I won't do any hits anymore." Was the first thing Teddy said after a long silence between her and her brother. They were both in the workshop as usual, with some rock band playing in the background. They were watching cartoons together. "But if I see something happening, I'm gonna step in and fuck shit up." 

Tony looked across the couch at his sister, "Naturally. What changed your mind? Was it Rosie?" 

Teddy snorted, "No. Azrael gave me a two month vacation and told me to take it easy."

Tony snickered, "I love that angel so much." 

The shifter rolled her eyes, "Whatever. I'm sleepy. Goodnight Anthony."

"Theodore." Tony nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned back to the T.V. Suddenly, he felt a soft weight on his chest and looked down to find his sister in her cat form curled up in his chest. Slowly he scratched her head and she nuzzled farther into his chest.


	44. Chapter 44

Teddy was walking home from the bar on a quiet night in December, the snow was falling around her and it was freezing, but the shifter didn't mind. In fact, she loved this time of the year, her birthday was coming up and this would be the first Christmas she got to spend with Rosie.

The shifter was enjoying the cold night, people watching, as usual. The Avengers were out sorting out the whole accords thing with Cap and the rest, and Teddy didn't want to stay at the compound by herself so she went to visit her favourite bar and buy some good ole Mary Jane.

She was off in her own mind when she heard a scream and what sounded like fire crackling. Teddy frowned and ran closer to the sounds out of curiosity and concern. She came upon an apartment building on fire, some people were still inside and she could faintly hear sirens in the distance. Teddy knew they weren't going to get there in time and she sighed heavily. 

Tony was going to be so pissed.

She teleported into the building and searched for someone. It didn't take very long since they were screaming and the shifter grabbed them, a man and a woman, and teleported outside. She went back in and got some more people and she continued this until everyone was out.

By the fifth time she teleported, the shifter started to feel light head from all the smoke she inhaled and she really started to regret not bringing Peter's magic bullets.

The last person she had to bring out was a little girl who was curled up in a corner, cradling a dingy looking stuffed dog to her chest. Teddy grabbed her and they got out of there.

When the shifter appeared outside with the little girl, the firefighters were pulling up, getting ready to put the fire out. Teddy looked around for the girl's mother or father or somebody.

"Angie!" Teddy turned around to see a woman running towards her with a worried look on her face. The little girl in her wiggled out of her arms and ran towards the lady. 

Teddy took a breath and teleported back home.

..................................................

The Avengers had just returned home from dealing with the accords situation. They were all exhausted, having been there since morning and it was almost ten o clock. Most of them crashed on the couch, while the rest went straight to the kitchen.

Suddenly, Teddy appeared and hunched over in a coughing fit. Everyone scrambled to her aid trying to figure out what was going on, when the shifter fell to her knees and puked up blood. 

Everyone stepped back and took in her appearance, Teddy was covered in ash and smelt like burning wood.

"Teddy?!" Tony ran out of the kitchen in alarm after hearing the commotion in the living room. 

When she finally stopped puking Teddy slowly stood up and looked around with glassy eyes that rolled to the back of her head and she fainted. Thor stepped forward and grabbed her before she fell and lifted her bridal style.

The god looked to Tony and the man sighed, "Bring her to the med bay." 

...........................................

Tony paced the room, he had been pacing the room for almost an hour waiting, waiting for his little sister to wake up, to move, something. She was laying in the bed with several tubes attached to her, still covered in ash and she was silent. The only sign that she was alive was her chest moving and the heart monitor slowly beeping. 

The others had gone away and left Tony at his request and were all waiting outside for news. 

After awhile Tony stopped pacing the room and got a wet cloth to clean the ash from his sister's face.

A few moments later, Teddy's eyes fluttered open, she looked around in a daze for a bit before focusing on Tony. The shifter opened her mouth to say something but suddenly sat up and leaned over the bed, puking into a bucket Tony had previously put there. Tony rubbed her back as she gagged into the bucket.

Teddy groaned as she sat up, laying back in the bed.

"I will pay you to smother me with my pillow." Teddy croaked out and she winced at the sound of her voice.

Tony rolled his eyes at her dramatics and put away the wet cloth. "How the hell did you get like this? You had me so worried and I think you even scared the shit out of Natasha." 

"There might have been a small fire."

Tony groaned, "I told you to take it easy and you go playing around in fires?"

Teddy rolled her eyes and pouted, "I wasn't playing around. The building was on fire and people were inside and I had to get them out." 

"Whatever, promise me you'll never do that again?" Tony held out his pinky finger and Teddy snorted.

"Promise." She wrapped her pinky finger around his,"So what happened today with those old bitches?"

Tony giggled lightly, "Cap and the rest are under house arrest for five years, Thor signed and somehow convinced everyone that Loki wouldn't be much trouble and Bucky has to go to therapy to make sure his brain isn't fucked anymore." 

"Cool." Tony had this amused look on his face and Teddy knew something else was coming. "What?"

"Ross wants you to sign to." Tony snickered at his sister's horrified expression. "I know, I tried to tell him you would never be interested but he said he'll arrest you if you don't and probably put you in The Raft."

"Sorry, I'm not Avengers material, you can tell that old dick to go fuck himself."

Teddy went into another coughing fit and Tony handed her a glass of water. 

"Besides, I've got like two weeks left and I would like them to be stress free. If I have to kill him to get that then I will." Tony snorted.


	45. Chapter 45

It was the night of Tony's Christmas party slash Teddy's birthday party. The shifter was feeling good, as good as she could feel while bleeding out every now and again, she just smoked a lot of pot and drank many shots of tequila.

Teddy was so drunk, she ended up standing on Tony's bar singing Sweet Caroline while using a shot glass as a microphone. Rosie was trying to get her down and Ben was laughing at the two of them. 

The party ended a few hours ago and the Avengers and company were hanging out like they usually did after Tony's parties. Teddy was the only person in the group who got drunk since half of them couldn't get drunk and the other half wanted to stay sober. 

"Sweet caroline, Ba ba ba," Teddy slurred and stumbled across the bar, Rosie reached up, trying as hard as possible to make sure her mom didn't fall and break her neck.

"Mom, seriously. Get down from there before you hurt yourself." Rosie had been trying to reason with Teddy for the better part of an hour and it didn't seem to be working.

"No peasant. I do what I want." The shifter turned around and continued dancing, "Ba Ba Ba." 

Rosie buried her head in her hands and groaned, Ben came behind her and kissed her on the cheek. "Watch and learn, muffin."

Ben pulled out a knife from his pocket and waved it at Teddy. "Teddy, look what I've got for you." 

The shifter turned around with wide eyes and a child like grin, holding her hands out to grab it but Ben pulled it away. "No, you've gotta come down here and get it." Teddy pouted and got down slowly, grabbing the knife out of Ben's hand and walked away. 

Rosie gaped at him and he just shrugged his shoulders. 

............................................

Teddy wandered around the compound whispering Sweet Caroline pissed drunk, stumbling and occasionally falling in her face. She finally stopped in front of Tony's vault where he stored his most dangerous creations and the gauntlet, which still contained four of the infinity stones.

Teddy giggled, punched in the code for the door and walked in, more like stumbled in.

Teddy walked around the room, giggling at all the glowing items in the vault. She eventually stopped right in front of the gauntlet and gaped in awe of the many colours it contained.

"It's so funny how something so beautiful is the cause of my death. I can't put any blame on you, Loki did tell me not to touch, but you were just so pretty." The shifter slurred out.

She reached out and held the thumb of the gauntlet, gently stroking it. She picked it up gently and held it in both hands, observing the weapon. Every nook and cranny she looked at. 

When she rubbed the space stone a pain went through her arm and travelled to her chest. All of a sudden she couldn't breath and she dropped the gauntlet, which started glowing a bright yellow and bright blue tendrils crawled out towards Teddy's chest, latching onto her.

Teddy started coughing up blood and felt something wet running down her face. She swiped the liquid and saw blood on her hands, falling to the ground clutching her chest, where the tendrils had disappeared, choking on her blood and shaking. 

She tried to get up and call for help only to fall to the ground again knocking over one of the many shiny, glowing objects. She gasped for breath and slowly, everything started going dark. The last thing she heard was her brother yelling her name.

................................................

"In breaking news, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Stark has died today of a reported aneurysm. It has been made known that Stark was also the infamous vigilante Teddy who the police are calling The Reaper. This is a very sad time for the family and the Starks have all of our condolences."

...............................................

The funeral took place in the biggest church in New York and there was still not enough seats form everyone. Everyone turned up in this dark day. Tony was sat next to his niece, who had been crying her eyes out for days. He was surprised at how many people attended the funeral.

There were people from the army, common criminals, police officers, mercenaries and so many more. Tony swore he saw Frank Castle on his way in, lurking outside but he could not be sure. All of the Avengers came and Peter brought May.

There rain was falling yet people stood outside.

This was truly a sad day.

............................................

It was four months since Teddy died, and each time Tony went to visit, he noticed the grass around her grave was slowly dying. He waved it off as nothing. Chalking it up to bad maintenance.

In the middle of the night on a Friday, the first Friday in spring, a grave digger was fast at work getting ready for the funeral taking place in the morning. 

It was quiet.

A hand suddenly popped up out of the dirt, followed by another and a head. A woman crawled out gasping for breath and spitting out dirt. The grave digger, who saw the whole thing, ran out of the yard in a panic and left the woman standing there in confusion.

She looked at her hands and the grave she just crawled out of, groaning in agony and annoyance.

"Son of a Bitch!"


End file.
